Sim Hinman Wan, “Indonesia’s Sultanate Ports in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Prints”
Department of Art History Colloquium
October 25, 2024
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM America/Chicago
Cultural intertwinement is a phenomenon central to the globalization discourse that remains insufficiently studied and poorly understood because of the colonial project to impose divides rather than recognize connections. In maritime Southeast Asia during the seventeenth century, the Dutch East India Company’s effort of navigating and codifying the region’s ethnocultural plurality gave rise to the modern construct of Muslim and Chinese locals, two historically convergent diasporas, as entirely separate heritages. This presentation discusses a collection of visual documents that includes seascape engravings, cartographic views, and travelog illustrations of Indonesia from the Dutch archives. It considers how the portrayal of sultanate architecture and urban settings throughout the Archipelago supported the early colonial desire to mythologize Muslim cultures, in relation to the Chinese, as a transregional authority of Asia distinguishable from the Indigenous populations. A key point explored is the degree to which images of marine expeditions, land surveyance, and cross-cultural encounters reveal the colonizer’s vulnerable position in a narrative of territorial conquest and global consequences with multiple dominant protagonists.
Sim Hinman Wan is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Architectural Studies in the History of Art and Architecture Department at the University of Pittsburgh. His research addresses early modern globalization and the built environment, with focus on Muslim, Chinese, and Dutch contributions to the urbanization of Indonesian ports. Recent essays have appeared in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians and Early Modern Low Countries. Dr. Wan is an alumnus of UIC Art History. He completed his PhD dissertation, “Intertwined Genealogies: Dutch, Chinese, and Colonial Indonesian Architecture of Philanthropy, 1640–1740,” under the direction of Prof. Martha Pollak. This project received the Annual Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Graduate College, the International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council, and the Mellon Dissertation Fellowship from the Council on Library and Information Resources.
Date posted
Oct 8, 2024
Date updated
Oct 8, 2024