Cristin Sethi

Cristin McKnight Sethi’s work focuses on South Asian art of the early modern to contemporary periods. Her interests include global histories of collecting and exhibiting South Asian objects, art made during the British Raj, and the politics and art historical predicament of craft. Sethi has worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Fowler Museum, and is currently assisting with an upcoming exhibition of contemporary art at the Asian Art Museum San Francisco.

She has presented papers and taught courses on a wide range of topics related to the history of collecting, photography, miniature painting, contemporary craft, and Asian textiles. In addition to conducting research in India on kalamkari textiles while a Fulbright Fellow, Sethi has studied woodblock printing and natural dyeing with traditional textile artists in Jaipur, Sri Kalahasti, Ahmedabad, and Bangalore.

She is currently a PhD candidate in the History of Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley, researching and writing her dissertation on phulkari embroidery from Punjab.