Alexandra Bret
( Visiting PhD Fellow, October 2025 – present )
Alexandra Bret is a PhD candidate at Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO, Paris) and is affiliated to the Centre d’études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques (CESSMA). She holds an undergraduate degree in art history and a graduate diploma in museology from the École du Louvre. She also holds a Hindi bachelor and a Master’s degree from INALCO. Her research, funded by INALCO, aims to understand the place of the Goddess in contemporary Indian visual culture. Contemporary India presents a wide array of visual representations of the Goddess, displayed in contexts ranging from the Hindu temple to public spaces and museum settings, thereby underscoring the plurality of cultural and religious practices that coexist in the modern Indian landscape. The research seeks to examine how secular and religious practices and diverse object statuses are articulated around those visual representations. By drawing on the concept of visual culture, she aims to interrogate the social relationships at work around them, particularly sculptures and pictorial works seen in temples and museums. Prior to her PhD, Alexandra gained solid experience in managing cultural projects, taking on various responsibilities such as creating online content and managing socio-cultural institutions.
