These days, exhibitions hopscotch around the world. Everyone loves a good blockbuster, but how easy or difficult is it to pull off?

Who better to give some insight into the process than Dr. Stephen Inglis, the adjunct curator of the AGO’s version of the exhibition? We touched on this issue during an in-depth conversation about his work on the Maharaja exhibit.

In case you didn’t know, Stephen is the curator emeritus from the Canadian Museum of Civilization (where he once held the position of Director-General, Research and Collections) and is the new executive director of the Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute, which is to open in northwestern Quebec in 2011. He is also an art historian with specialties in both Indian and Canadian folk art traditions.

So how did he get involved with the AGO? It turns out that two years ago he was in London sussing out the option of creating an exhibition on maharajas, when he heard about the Victoria & Albert Museum’s plans for their own show. When the V&A became interested in sending the exhibit to the AGO, he got the call asking if he would be interested in working on the project, by helping “transition” it to Canada. The rest is…well, you know…history.

One of the issues of bringing the V & A show here is that you have to translate it to a Canadian audience, tell me about some of the issues involved in doing that.

There is a section of the exhibit called The Raj and British rule in India of what is often referred to as The Raj. But I think that many people – this is never explained in the exhibition – many people would not know that the word Raj used to describe the British Rule comes from the same word as maharaja [maha means great, raja means king]. It’s the word for king that has been transitioned into the British sense of authority during their colonial rule in India. Those kinds of things are maybe taken for granted in London, but for the Canadian audience, it’s an interesting little detail that they need to absorb and think about and have explained.

It seems like a simple thing but in a sense, it tells a whole story in itself – how the British, in many ways, adopted some of the traditions and the positions formerly held by kings of India because they were the new kings of India. Many of the processions – of audiences meeting kings- were even kind of modified (sometimes expanded and sometimes contracted) to suit the needs of a new form of imperialism which was the British rule.

What are some of the trickier aspects of working on this project since you are also in Ottawa, this is happening in Toronto and there are other partner museums involved?

[Laughter] I think it is very tricky. One of the things about this experience is that it exemplifies the challenges that are faced by all large travelling exhibitions today, which usually combine a whole set of different professionals, often from different countries and from different traditions. It relies a lot on good cooperation and goodwill, but it also relies on a set of skills that people in museums develop for really working together, cooperating, relying on each other, and learning to fulfill certain functions.

The idea that a single person works on the curatorial vision, on the interpretation, on the layout – especially something of this scale and complexity – doesn’t work anymore. In a sense, it is both a challenge and also a very great pleasure to find yourself in a position where you are relying on your colleagues and on people that you have recently met, to deliver a product that is coherent, that takes into account the public, and that delivers messages that are both explicit and implicit in what is happening [in the exhibition].

Piali Roy is a Toronto freelance writer with a long-held interest in South Asian culture and history. You can contact her at yourvoice@ago.net.