Speakers
Formed in the colonial era of oppression, Awadh was built with Italian, French, Persian and Turkish influences. The Nawabs built spaces for their queer liberation in revolutionary projects such as Qaiserbagh and Aina Khana.
This session brings together Sonal Mithal and Arul Paul, co-authors of Lucknow Queerscapes, to to lay out more such instances of Lucknow’s queer architecture as extensions of the Nawabs’ personalities. They are joined by Vikramajit Ram for a conversation on queer-reading of the colonial archive that illuminates the embedded queer strategies of the Nawabs of Awadh. How did they offer resistance to the colonial ingress? How did they discomfort colonial power?
The discussion will be followed by a Q&A with the audience.
Image credit: Unknown. “Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh at the Qaisar Bagh; India.” c. 1850–56. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. 27 3/8 x 37 1/2 in. Kenneth X and Joyce Robbins Collection.
Speakers
Sonal Mithal
Sonal Mithal (she/her) is an architect, artist, and educator, and co-founder of People for Heritage Concern, a research and conservation studio. She chairs the Masters in Conservation and Regeneration programme at CEPT University. Her practice spans architecture, landscape, queer studies, history, and conservation. Her artworks have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2019 and the India Pavilion at the London Design Biennale 2021. Her large-scale artworks were commissioned for the Ahmedabad and Surat Metro stations, visualising lesser-known histories of the cities through rigorous archival research. Her recent books include Living Together: More-Than-Human Ecologies for Architectural Thinking (Birkhäuser, 2025), IncLOOsive: Feminist Toilet Architecture (CEPT University Press, 2025), and Lucknow Queerscapes (Taylor and Francis, 2024).
Arul Paul
Arul Paul (he/they) is an architectural historian and educator, and Associate Professor at the Nitte Institute of Architecture, Mangalore. He is a doctoral candidate in Art, Design and Transdisciplinary Studies at Srishti Manipal Institute. His research explores the intersections of architecture, urbanism, queer studies, media, and cultural memory. He is co-author, with Sonal Mithal, of Lucknow Queerscapes: A Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archive (Routledge), supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. He has also written Queering Academia, and co-authored Lucknow Unrestrained: Palimpsest of Incongruous Possibilities.
Vikramajit Ram
Vikramajit Ram is a novelist and non-fiction writer in Bangalore. His books include Elephant Kingdom: Sculptures from Indian Architecture, Dreaming Vishnus: A Journey through Central India, and most recently Mansur: A Novel.
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