The arrival of Vasco da Gama (after an 1898 oil painting by José Veloso Salgado)

Pushpamala N. is a contemporary Indian artist based in Bangalore. She is known for creating insightful and intellectually intriguing images in which she appears as the primary character. Pushpamala began her career as a sculptor before moving into photography and performance in the 1990s.

With 'The arrival of Vasco da Gama (after an 1898 oil painting by José Veloso Salgado)', Pushpamala recreates Salgado’s painting of 1898 in the collection of Portugal’s Lisbon Geographic Society. The fantastical scene is intended to capture the arrival of the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama in India in 1498, 400 years earlier. In keeping with Salgado’s painting, Pushpamala performs as a triumphant da Gama meeting Zamorin, the King of Calicut; in fact, da Gama was humiliated rather than welcomed on arrival. The tableau is entirely imagined and characters wear clothing that is not accurate for the time – in either 1498 or 1898. Photographed by Clay Kelton at Arun Cine Services studio in Bangalore, Pushpamala’s cinematic reinterpretation of Salgado’s pastiche emphasises the painting’s romanticised historical inaccuracy and lack of cultural understanding.