Curators

3

2017

CURATOR

Riyas Komu is the co-founder and secretary of the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF), and a multi-media artist and activist working towards encouraging art education and developing art infrastructure in India. His critically acclaimed political works have been exhibited extensively in India and abroad, which include several key works that focus specially on the political and cultural history of Kerala. Riyas, who shuttles between Kerala and Mumbai, was one of two artists from India to be selected by curator Robert Storr for the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 and he represented the Iranian Pavilion at Venice Biennale in 2015.

Having his roots in Kerala, football seems to run in Riyas’s veins as he went on to create significant projects focusing on the game, including Mark Him First Half & Second Half, and Left Legs with the Iraqi National Football Team (2008/2010), Subrato to César 2010, reflecting on the current issues of Indian Football at Gallery Maskara, Mumbai, and Beyond Gods, retrieving the multiculturalism of French football at Centre Pompidou, Paris, as part of their “Paris-Delhi-Bombay” exhibition. In addition to these projects, he co-curated the first ever International football film festival in India at the Goa International Film Festival and Trivandrum International Film festivals in 2012.

Being at the helm of KBF he has initiated the Children’s Biennale, Students Biennale and Artists Cinema as part of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. He is currently working as a director of programmes for the Foundation and also develops projects focusing on Art Education in India.

“The curator stepped down from their role on October 2018 due to prevailing circumstances”

12

2017

CURATOR

Annapurna Garimella is a Delhi-based designer and an art historian. Her research focuses on late medieval Indic architecture and the history and practices of vernacular art forms in India after Independence. She heads Jackfruit Research and Design, an organization with a specialized portfolio of design, research and curatorial. She is also the Founding and Managing Trustee of Art, Resources and Teaching Trust, a not-for-profit organization that runs a public art library, conducts independent research projects and does teaching and advisement for college and university students and the general public. Her most recent curatorial projects include Vernacular, in the Contemporary (Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi) and Faith: Manu Parekh in Benaras 1980-2012 (Art Alive, New Delhi) and Drawing 2014 (Gallery Espace, New Delhi). Her most recent book is about a collaboration between a Rajasthani miniature painter and expatriate American photographer and is titled The Artful Life of R. Vijay (Serindia, 2016).

Prashant Panjiar Photograph by MANISH SINHA
Prashant Panjiar Photograph by MANISH SINHA

2017

CURATOR

Prashant Panjiar, a self-taught photographer, worked full-time as a photojournalist and editor in mainstream media from 1984 to 2001. Since then he has been working independently as a photographer specializing in reportage, editorial and documentary photography, a photo editor and curator. He is the co-founder and managing trustee of Nazar Foundation that promotes lens-based art. His latest initiative is the multi-disciplinary Goa Open Arts Festival and the Goa Open Arts Catalyst Grant that he co-founded and launched in 2020. His more recent books are Amongst the Believers–The Kumbh Mela at Prayag (published by Arthshila Trusts, 2024), Indianism (self-published 2023) and That Which Is Unseen (published by Navajivan Trust, 2021).
As the co-founder of the Delhi Photo Festival, Panjiar led the curatorial teams of all three editions. He also curated the first edition of Sensorium a festival of Arts, Literature & Ideas for Sunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts; exhibitions for the first two editions of the Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa; and was project curator for Kanu’s Gandhi exhibition. Panjiar has also served on the jury of the World Press Photo Awards, the China International Press Photo Competition and POY (Pictures of the Year International).

Untitled design (1)

2017

CURATOR

Manjari Nirula has been instrumental in reviving languishing crafts, the marketing of craft products and the participation of craft-persons in regional and international fairs. The vice-president of World Crafts Council Asia-Pacific Region and the Crafts Council of India, and member of the Indian government’s committee for the selection of master craft persons, Manjari has been coordinating the UNESCO Award of Excellence Programme for South Asia since 2004. She is a member of the Commitment to Kashmir (CtoK) panel that examines business plans of young Kashmiri craftsmen and women to allocate interest-free loans to them in order to begin a small-scale business. The panel also conducts workshops, field visits, and individual mentoring for selected applicants.

Dinesh Khanna

2017

CURATOR

Dinesh Khanna has been working as a professional photographer for more than 35 years with an eclectic blend of commercial and personal work. His personal work has been published as acclaimed books like Bazaar and Living Faith. The latest books he has worked on are: Right of the Line–The President’s Bodyguard and Life in Rashtrapati Bhawan which have been commissioned by the Rashtrapati Bhawan and Sahapedia. 

Over the years his work has also been shown in solo, and group shows in galleries from Delhi to New York and Varanasi to San Francisco. He has also done several assignments for the Incredible India campaign, including the prestigious one for the Taj Mahal’s 350th anniversary. Dinesh is also a Managing Trustee of Nazar Foundation, and one of the Co-founders of the Delhi Photo Festival and also a Photography Curator for the first two editions of Serendipity Arts Festival. He has taught Photography in various institutions like Ashoka University, The One School, Goa, Jamia Milia and MICA, Ahmedabad amongst others. He is a Director of the Dhrish Academy of Photography at the Museo Camera, conducts Photography courses and workshops and was a Visual Consultant with Sahapedia.

RANJIT HOSKOTE-Portrait 3 by Priyesha Nair

2017

CURATOR

Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist, and curator. He has been pivotal to shaping contemporary art discourse in India, and in registering multiple cultural issues, artistic domains, and moments of history. He has been honoured with prestigious awards like the Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award, the Sahitya Akademi Translation Award, the Sanskriti Award for Literature, the SH Raza Award for Literature, and the 7th Mahakavi Kanhaiyalal Sethia Award for Poetry.

Hoskote curated India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2011) and was co-curator, with Okwui Enwezor and Hyunjin Kim, of the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008). Since 1993, he has curated numerous exhibitions of visual art, both in India and internationally: these include museum retrospectives of major artists such as Jehangir Sabavala (NGMA, Mumbai and Delhi, 2005-06), Atul Dodiya (NGMA Delhi, 2013) and MF Husain (Mathaf Museum of Modern Art, Doha, 2019), as well as transhistorical research-oriented exhibitions such as The Sacred Everyday: Embracing the Risk of Difference (Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa, 2018).

Anuradha Kapur, theatre director and curator
Anuradha Kapur, theatre director and curator

2017

CURATOR

Anuradha Kapur is a theatre-maker and teacher. She is the founder-member of Vivadi, a cross-disciplinary group of theatre-makers, visual artists, film-makers, musicians and writers who attempt to connect practice with research in their work. 

Anuradha Kapur taught at the National School of Drama, New Delhi for more than three decades; and was Director of the School from 2007 to 2013. She has also held visiting professorships at Ambedkar University, Delhi, the University of Warwick and the University of Cape Town. She curated the performance window of the exhibit body.city: siting contemporary culture in India at the House of World Cultures, Berlin, in 2003; co-curated the theatre section of the Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa in 2015 and 2016; and was part of the curatorial team of the International Theatre Festival of Kerala (ITFoK), Thrissur in 2017 and 2023. Her book, Actors Pilgrims Kings and Gods: The Ramlila at Ramnagar, was published by Seagull Books, Calcutta (1993, 2004). For her work in the theatre, Anuradha Kapur was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Direction in 2004.