TRIS's Neville Tuli brings global spectacle to life with 'The World’s Greatest Mela'

The Tuli Research Centre for India Studies (T.R.I.S.) is showcasing a groundbreaking exhibition titled 'The World’s Greatest Mela – Respecting India’s Cinematic Heritage.' This visionary event is curated by Neville Tuli, our esteemed Founder and President, who is renowned as an influential author, curator, archivist, and trailblazer in cultural institution-building.

The exhibition embodies three decades of Neville Tuli’s commitment to researching, archiving, preserving, and transforming over 400,000 unique artifacts from Indian and Asian fine and popular arts, crafts, and world cinema. This extensive collection will be presented as a comprehensive knowledge base for India Studies, accessible to the global audience starting next month.

This exhibition will be open to the public from August 13th to 25th, 2024, at the Visual Arts Gallery and Open Palm Court, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.

Tuli’s vision to establish cinema and its associated art forms as essential visual-textual resources for knowledge and education is the driving force behind this exhibition. It also underpins his broader goal of developing the first three-year undergraduate curriculum for India Studies.

Cinema as a knowledge base has been traditionally confined to film and cultural studies, but it also holds untapped potential as a vast pedagogical resource beyond its conventional boundaries.

In the coming months, T.R.I.S. will present a practical and comprehensive system for utilizing the art of cinema as a primary and secondary source of knowledge, with a special focus on India Studies.

This exhibition underscores the cultural, intellectual, and emotional journey of India which cinema reveals, with an unparalleled power to capture minds, command attention, and forge connections, uniting entertainment, art, and education like few other cultural disciplines.

Commenting on the Exhibition, Tuli says: “However comprehensive an exhibition, it can only capture a minor fraction of its subject, in this case, the vast world of Indian Cinema. So, the main objective is to capture the essence, its unique cinematic energy, its historical context, and most importantly here - the high aesthetic and intellectual standard of the art objects which make a film and its impact."

"Hopefully the exhibition will inspire the public and academia to re-examine and reassess the educational possibilities of the subject matter, while delivering a deep dose of joy; for it is joy which our educational system truly lacks, hence the motivation and our ability to excel at the highest levels, still deeply lags compared to our potential,” Tuli concluded.

Alongside the exhibition, Neville Tuli will give an illustrated lecture titled 'Cinema as a Critical Educational Resource' at the Stein Auditorium on August 16, beginning at 07:30 p.m. This will be followed by a discussion featuring Rinki Roy (daughter of Bimal Roy), Tajdar Amrohi (son of Kamal Amrohi), and Tuli, focusing on the 'Life and Cinema of Kamal Amrohi & Meena Kumari'.