Patel, Divia

Patel, Divia

Divia Patel is a curator in the Asian Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She specializes in contemporary art and design, popular culture and photography from South Asia. She curated the exhibition Cinema India: The Art of Bollywood (2002 – 2007) which travelled nationally and internationally and won a BBC award for achievement in the Arts. Since then she has curated The Photographers’ Pilgrimage: Exploring Buddhist Sites (V&A, 2009), co-curated Indian Life and Landscape (2009-10) which toured extensively in India and curated M.F Husain: Master of Modern Indian Painting (V&A, 2014). She has published on all of these subject areas including substantial articles on the 19th century paintings of Ajanta and 19th century photography. Her more recent research has been on contemporary design from India which resulted in the publication of her book India Contemporary Design: Fashion, Graphics, Interiors (Roli Press, 2014). She was co-curator of the V&A’s major exhibition, The Fabric of India (2015-2016) with responsibility for the modern and contemporary content. She is one of three authors of The Fabric of India book (with Rosemary Crill and Stephen Cohen, V&A Publishing, 2015). Her focus on contemporary South Asia has led to significant acquisitions of work by contemporary artists and designers for the V&A’s permanent collections.