Entangled Histories: "the Sikkim Collection" at the Royal Ontario Museum

This MRP investigates a small collection of silver gelatin prints, informally known as the "Sikkim Collection," in the Global South Asia department at the Royal Ontario Museum. Studied for the first time at the ROM, this applied project with a theoretical component decodes cataloguing details of each photograph to understand the Sikkim Collection within the larger history of colonial photography in Tibet and the North-Eastern Himalayan regions of present-day India. Through archival research, survey of relevant literature, and cataloguing of the collection, the purpose of the thesis is to uncover the story of the Sikkim Collection. Successful attributions regarding maker, location, and dating information, gesture towards a visual history of the region that is rife with intersecting communities. This MRP provides a detailed cataloguing of the collection in order to understand what the Sikkim Collection is about.