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About the Author

Melanie Eastburn is senior curator of Asian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Her previous exhibitions at the Art Gallery include Lee Ufan: Quiet Resonance (2024); Japan Supernatural (2019), whose publication was awarded the Publisher's Accolade at the International Convention of Asian Scholars Book Prize 2021; and Glorious: Earthly Pleasures and Heavenly Realms (2017).

Chaitanya Sambrani is associate professor at the Australian National University in Canberra. His curatorial projects and publications include Savanhdary Vongpoothorn: All that Arises (2019), At Home in the World: The Art and Life of Gulammohammed Sheikh (2019), Place.Time.Play: Contemporary Art from the West Heavens to the Middle Kingdom (2010) and Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India (2004-07).

Johanna Bear is assistant curator of contemporary Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Formerly an associate curator at Artspace, Sydney, and board member and chair of Runway Journal, she is currently the Sydney desk editor for ArtAsiaPacific and a contributor to various arts publications.

Carol Cains is senior curator of Asian art at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and former curator of Asian art at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Her exhibitions and publications include New Asian Art (2025), Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia (2019), Adorned: Textiles and Jewellery from Central Asia (2016), Blue: Alchemy of a Colour (2015), Chinoiserie: Asia in Europe 1620 - 1840 (2010), Krishna: Love and Devotion (2007), and Rajput: Sons of Kings (2004).

Neeraja Poddar is an independent scholar, curator, and arts leader with extensive international experience. She has held curatorial positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The City Palace Museum, Udaipur. Neeraja has published widely on the Bhagavata Purana in the visual arts. Her curatorial projects include Krishna Reddy: The Movement of Life (2025), Mythical, Divine, Demonic: Animal Imagery in South Asian Art (2024), and Encounters in Exile: From the Ramayana (2022).

Seang Sokha is a scholar specialising in Khmer art and museology in the Department of Education at the National Museum of Cambodia. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, examining the visual and iconographic strategies through which Angkorian rulers articulated, legitimised, and projected political authority and sovereignty.

Caroline Widmer is the curator of Indian painting at the Rietberg Museum in Zurich. Her publications and curatorial projects include Young Krishna: Adventures of an Indian God (2023), Gitagovinda: India's Great Love Story (2019), and Space in Time: Contemporary Miniature Paintings from Pakistan (2019).