Foundation Initiatives

Session I – Interrogating ‘Place’ in Practice
Bringing together an art historian, filmmaker and independent publisher, the panel deliberates on how ‘location’ as a variable in practice continues to undergo interrogation – highlighting how their individual means of expression engages with activism, often deployed through creative strategies and community imperatives, that takes into consideration, a specific regional politics in South Asia. Through their presentations, we may think about how to further foster vibrant dialogues, absorb and interact in new locations by re-considering notions of otherness, exile and migration. Perhaps then, our primary sense of belonging or affiliation can be rooted to subject matter rather than the place of origin.
Moderator – Gayatri Sinha
Panelists – Nancy Adajania, Dechen Roder, Kanak Mani Dixit

Artist Presentation
Ayisha Abraham

The Firefly Filled Night Goes by Like That (2016), Ayisha’s most recent self- published book is both a document of a site-specific project undertaken in the spring of 1999. Taking place in the vacant house of her maternal grandmother situated in the cantonment of Bangalore, the project consisted of a range of activities – art-making, exhibiting, performing, conversing, teaching and socialising – that transformed the house for one month prior to its demolition. For Ayisha – history, memory and the archive, come together through a process that began in 1991 with four photographs and a letter from her grandmother.

Session II – Configurations of the Self
What does it mean to question and re-make oneself in the face of continual oppression and discrimination? How does the creative exploration, construction and assertion of the ‘self’ act as a form of agency in these scenarios? What is the potential shift in power when one locates oneself, makes an image of oneself, performs, embodies and re-invents oneself? Could a deeper engagement with the psyche, within the frame of the psychosocial and psychotherapeutic, offer us a useful lexicon with which to open up and examine the notion of the self? The panel attempts to understand a broader, more holistic understanding of contemporary art by engaging with other disciplines to expand and unpack what it can be and do.
Moderator – Jyoti Dhar
Panelists – Sharareh Bajracharya, Priya Sen, Venuri Perera

Session III – Political Dimensions of (Arts) Practices
How do documentary and performance images of lived experiences explore the intellectual, cultural and technical transformation of each era, especially in the digital age when it can be swiftly used to counter state propaganda and censorship? Beyond the crucial questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’ certain content is being imparted, this panel is an assimilation of positions around how to deploy a political statement through one’s creative practice, and thereby extendedly question, what is the unique character of ‘South Asian’ in our diverging and converging practices taking into account the subcontinent’s particular histories? How do these ‘positions’ help us interrogate national, cultural or even personal histories
Moderator – Shohini Ghosh
Panelists – Ashmina Ranjit, Sudhanva Deshpande, Shahidul Alam

Curator Presentation
Tanzim Wahab

While South Asian art often defines ‘place-responsiveness’ between the binary of rootedness and hybridity, is there a new reality we need to consider in order to think beyond the binary? Artists and cultural practitioners are often imagining a cross-regional solidarity during a time of growing nationalism in vernacular landscapes and political rhetoric. How do we redefine a place beyond national identity when a regional problem becomes the shared concern of South Asian vernaculars? Furthermore, with the advent of new cultural institutions, biennales, international exchanges and art tourism, how do we (re)explore regional.