SHOR by Ananya Jain. Facilitating workshops, exhibitions walk throughs and creative experiences

Born and raised in India, Ananya Jain has created an interactive, immersive and experiential community called SHOR. A creative producer and curator along with her full time role at the Hayward Gallery, London, she believes in creating a dialogue through art and experiences. Founded as a cultural platform, it makes the spectators engage thematically. Her practice and unique perspective on curation with an emphasis on engagement and collaboration creates a distinctive latitude, giving access to people from different socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicities and professions to connect organically not only with themselves and the art but also with each other.
 
SHOR has organised four exhibition walk-throughs at The Welcome Collection, the Barbican Centre to name a few, and creative workshops; Threads: A writing workshop with Nastia Svarevska titled ‘word is thread and thread is language', ‘Love Tokens’ Handsewing Workshop with Caroline Ip, Taste: Ferment! at APT Gallery with The Thin Red Lion Collective’s ‘Pickled’ and Kneading: Draw with Flour with Maisongb and Lila Loisse at Small Time Projects with many more planned for later this year.

Tell us what prompted SHOR. How did the idea come to you?
SHOR was originally conceived as a podcast in 2020 during the first wave of the COVID 19 pandemic and back then it emerged out of a desire to continue creative conversations with friends and strangers. As someone who has always enjoyed meeting new people, bringing them together and engaging in a dialogue about life, art and various personal experiences, like most other people, I was seeking those connections in what was quite an isolating and precarious time. The podcast eventually transformed into a publication and online blog which featured interviews and articles on a range of themes, from exhibition reviews, to personal essays and even travel experiences.
When I moved to London in 2022, I felt like there was a real need for a return to in-person interactions. London has so much art and culture to offer, ranging from museum and gallery experiences to the historic and contemporary sites of the city itself that can allow for creative interaction. It is also a city that people from cultural and national backgrounds call home, and, as a result, a fertile ground for cross-cultural exchange. This is when I conceived SHOR in the City, a series of meetups across various museums and cultural institutions, including the Museum of the Home, The Barbican Centre and The Welcome Collection. We would go visit the exhibition together, guided by some initial prompts developed by me.
The response to SHOR in the City was heartwarming and so many people, friends, friends of friends and also absolute strangers who heard of us through social media began to attend these visits. It reaffirmed just how many people are looking for meaningful social and cultural interactions. Since then, we have expanded to curated workshops, mostly organised in collaboration with artists and designers, in art spaces all across the city. I tend to programme experiences based on broad thematic strands now. Last year we considered ‘Threads: Cloth, Community and Culture’ and this year we are exploring ‘Taste: Food and Love’. Whilst SHOR has transformed across the years, collaboration and community remain at the centre of all of these events and experiences. 

You grew up in India and now live and work in London - has living away from home to build your curatorial practice influenced SHOR?
The name SHOR itself translates to ‘noise’, and highlights my deep connection to my home and roots. I grew up in Delhi, and beyond any other city it has shaped my association with and love of art, history and food. I have always visited various museums, frequented historical monuments, and watched theatre and dance performances, since I was very young. It is when I look back now that I realise just how deeply these experiences impacted me and have allowed me to become the person I am today, both personally and professionally.
Whilst I was always grateful to have access to so many cultural experiences in Delhi and also whilst travelling across the length and breadth of the rest of the country, moving to the United Kingdom is what sparked a greater appreciation for my cultural background. Experiencing so many new creative environments and interacting with people from different walks of life, I realised that I was hugely privileged in what I got to experience, feel and see back at home. The physical distance also made me want to hold onto these memories more at the risk of forgetting or losing certain parts of my identity.
Early on, I realised that my experiences of my cultural identity were not isolated and many of my friends and peers from different cultural backgrounds felt the same way. SHOR as a result, is definitely grounded in my personal identity, but is not exclusively South Asian, rather a space for cross-cultural interactions where we celebrate the similarities and differences to create shared experiences.

Art is ever-evolving and as a curator you have access to various facets. What do you think is the takeaway you would like viewers to experience?
For a long time, we have prioritised the visual sense when it comes to experiencing art. This ‘ocularcentrism’ is deeply rooted in many Western societies and I want people to move away from it. It is for this reason that I always prioritise a multisensory interaction that engages other sensations. Art is not just about looking, but about listening, and feeling and touching.
For a recent workshop, I collaborated with food-design studio Maisongb and artist Lila Loisse to produce ‘Kneading’, a flatbread making workshop at Small Time Projects (an artist-led curatorial space). We spent a whole afternoon making flatbread in the exhibition space and experimenting with a range of natural pigments and shapes to use bread to tell our own stories. Once people got their hands dirty, the conversation was organic and even transformative, so much so that it didn’t seem like a group of strangers anymore. In the end, we shared a community meal together and the energy of the exhibition space was completely transformed.
Beyond this engagement of the senses, I also want to disrupt any rules that seem to be enforced in traditional spaces and institutions. Why does the gallery have to be a space where people speak in hushed tones? Why can’t we activate a white-cube with a shared meal? Why can’t a museum be a space for collective movement and music? There is most definitely a shift in the cultural landscape globally and institutions are opening their doors and making space for some of these experiences, particularly by programming with communities. But there is more work to be done. Curatorial practice should be equally rooted in care for audiences as much as it is in care for the artwork. 

What kind of art do you gravitate towards – as a curator and as a viewer?
This is relative and changes based on the phase of life I am in, because art is so personal. I am drawn to art that experiments with materiality and scale, beyond the immediate thematic concerns. I have always loved photography, installation and textile-based art, but in the last two years have also grown to once again appreciate painting, particularly figuration.
It’s difficult to selectively pick out exhibitions considering the sheer number of incredible shows that are on view. A few highlights from the last few months include: Remembering Arpita Singh at Serpentine Gallery London, Wishmaker Salman Toor at Luhring Augustine New York, Into the Eternal Land Citra Sasmita at the Barbican Centre, and Between Wood and Wheel Christina Kimeze at South London Gallery.
There have been others, but these immediately come to mind for their emotional resonance. It’s interesting for me to look back and reflect on why these have been notable. They are perhaps more representative of my positioning in life than anything else at the moment. 

What challenges have you faced curating SHOR?
Whilst we’ve been incredibly lucky with our collaborators and venues, like any young organisation, the biggest challenge has been finding time and space to create. I currently work on SHOR in my free time and on weekends, because it truly emerges from my love for the arts. I hope that some day I can spend all my time programming and producing creative experiences and bringing people together. 

As a curator, art enthusiast and creative – what do you dream of seeing at your next SHOR curation?
There are many ideas brewing. In these last two years, our focus has been community programming, workshops and interventions. In the immediate future, we will host more interventions around the intersections of food, love and art in the coming months. I hope to bring this together in the form of an exhibition at the end of this year. Much like our workshops, this exhibition will be multisensory and highly collaborative, drawing on personal histories and everyday experiences.
Additionally, while most of our in-person activity has been London-centric, I also hope to bring SHOR to India. I think now, more than ever, we need more accessible and open spaces that foster a collective appreciation of art.
My dream scenario would be for SHOR to be a movement across cities, with a range of year-round events, exhibitions and programming. I would love to work with established artists and museums to curate workshops, but equally keep collaborating with unconventional venues and emerging creatives. Bringing both of these together to disrupt hierarchies that continue to characterise the art world. The most important thing for me is to continue to foster affordable and accessible creative experiences for any and everyone.