ABOUT STAGING THE CONTEMPORARY
‘Staging the Contemporary: The Next Generation’ is a two-day symposium and knowledge platform presented by India Art Fair and Ishara Art Foundation and is supported by Shiv Nadar University. The symposium aims to bring together the next generation of artists, curators, collectives and writers working in South Asia to deliberate on the urgencies, methodologies and infrastructures that lay new foundations for cultural practices today.
Some of the talks include:
Curatorial Methodologies
What are the urgencies felt by curators today based in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka? What are the commonalities and what are the differences? This panel features institutional and independent voices marking the diversity of positions on what in each of their views constitutes curatorial practice. This panel will be moderated by Samira Bose, and will feature Annalisa Mansukhani, Sarker Protick, Natasha Malik, and Pramodha Weerasekera.
The session will take place from 5pm – 6:25pm (New Delhi/Colombo) | 5:15pm – 6:40pm (Kathmandu) | 4:30pm – 5:55pm (Islamabad) | 5:30pm – 6:55pm (Dhaka).
Artist Publications and Platforms
There has been an exponential growth of artist publications in the past decade that foreground new modalities of dissemination, sustainability and image-making. This panel looks at the different aesthetic, material and ideological choices underpinning such practices. Representatives from BlueJackal, Offset Projects, Reliable Copy and Restricted Fixations will participate in the panel, which will be moderated by Annalisa Mansukhani.
The session will take place from 7:35pm – 8:45pm (New Delhi/Colombo) | 7:50pm – 9:00pm (Kathmandu) | 7:05pm – 8:15pm (Islamabad) | 8:05pm – 9:15pm (Dhaka).
Artistic Practice: Mediatic Environments
How are artists responding to the rapidly changing technologies and media environments in the Global South? Reflecting on the critical challenges entailed when working with and through multiple interfaces, this panel looks at the changing attitude towards mediums, sites and practice in an increasingly hybrid world of the virtual and actual. Kaushal Sapre will moderate the panel with artists Moonis Ahmed, Aziz Hazara, Omer Wasim and Sultana Zana.
The session will take place from 6:25pm – 7:35pm (New Delhi/Colombo) | 6:40pm – 7:55pm (Kathmandu) | 5:55pm – 7:05pm (Islamabad) | 6:55pm – 8:05pm (Dhaka).
Collective Consciousness
“What does it mean to be a collective?” is a question that resists any standardised response. Every collective pushes society to consider new ways to self-organise and imagine practice — how one thinks together, works together, creates together and sustains together — oftentimes at odds with systems that privilege the individual. This panel delves into four collectives in South Asia, exploring their origin and how they operate. The panel will be moderated by Nihaal Faizal, and feature Anga Art Collective, Her Pixel Story, Kaali Collective and The Packet.
The session will take place from 5pm – 6:10pm (New Delhi/Colombo) | 5:15pm – 6:25pm (Kathmandu) | 4:30pm – 5:40pm (Islamabad) | 5:30pm – 6:40pm (Dhaka).
Artistic Practice: Sites and Infrastructure
Several artists today dedicate their work to reimagining the notion of sites and infrastructures for their practice, testing the relationships between the environment and the body, history and memory. This panel looks at how artists are occupying, inhabiting, and producing new sites of encounter for and through their art. Artists Maksud Ali Mondal, Mohit Shelare, Jasmine Nilani Joseph and Natasha Jozi will have a conversation moderated by Aasma Tulika.
The session will take place from 6:10pm – 7:20pm (New Delhi/Colombo) | 6:25pm – 7:35pm (Kathmandu) | 5:40pm – 6:50pm (Islamabad) | 6:40pm – 7:50pm (Dhaka)
Text In The Expanded Field
With the advent of Web 2.0, reading, writing and circulation have taken on new forms, ushering an array of genres and modes of address. Writing and publishing in the arts that was once the domain of art history, museology and art criticism have expanded to encompass new discursive forms that include artistic research, lecture performances, curatorial propositions and speculative criticism. This panel brings together editors and writers who discuss their practices and the role they see for writing in a hyper-textual milieu. This panel will be moderated by Pramodha Weerasekera, and feature Arushi Vats, Bazik Thlana, Najrin Islam and Senjuti Mukherjee
The session will take place from 7:20pm – 8:30pm (New Delhi/Colombo) | 7:35pm – 8:45pm (Kathmandu) | 6:50pm – 8pm (Islamabad) | 7:50pm – 9:00pm (Dhaka).
Date 06-01-2021
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