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The Street and the Gallery: Shahidul Alam’s Archives of Practices

In bearing witness to the historical and the everyday, Alam continuously blurs the boundaries between the aesthetic, the political and the personal. Simultaneously, the retrospective showcased Alam’s critique of the Global South’s erasure from the history of photography and how his prominent presence in the “West” is a corrective towards decolonizing photography.

Between Warp and Weft: On Kallol Datta’s Textile Objects

Datta’s objects carry secrets around knots and folds at the kernel, and point to his practice of cutting patterns in a circular fashion at the formative stage. The circular pattern-cutting registers as an attempt to eliminate the possibility of waste, where the leftover fabric is turned into appendages for the installations.

The Street and the Gallery: Shahidul Alam’s Archives of Practices

Between Warp and Weft: On Kallol Datta’s Textile Objects

Interview

Being and Becoming: A conversation with Jai Khanna and Promila Bahri

By Saloni

TAKE on Art talks to the artist Jai Khanna and the curator Promila Bahri on their new exhibition ‘Inward Trail’. The exhibition features works by the artist celebrating the journey of self-discovery through exploration of disciplines in Jainism and its cultural heritage. The show’s curator has noticed in the artist’s works a contemporary form of miniature art exploring the meaning of ‘being and becoming’ through the depiction of “Thirthankaras” in a calm demeanour meditating in deep forested landscapes with mythical figures appearing. The artist and the curator ponder over the questions of interconnectedness of material and the spiritual leading to a holistic understanding of life.

Essay

Arpita Akhanda: The Memory Collector

By Rituparna Roy

In the past decade and a half, significant art has been produced on the subject of Partition, its aftermath and afterlives – with focus on geographical sites of ancestry, the border, migration and displacement, refugee colonies and inherited memories. Arpita is the youngest of the artists who have made this theme their own, to varying degrees. But what really distinguishes her oeuvre is that it is entirely predicated upon ‘familial postmemory’.

Interview

Sink or Swim, but Always Build: In conversation with Dinesh Vazirani

By Fatima Karan

Fatima Mahdi Karan speaks to Dinesh Vazirani about what the art world in India needs right now, as well as the sometimes painful messaging that emerges from auctions.

Essay

Remembering Vivan Sundaram: 1943-2023

By Emilia Terracciano

Saddened by his passing, Emilia Terracciano remembers Indian contemporary artist Vivan Sundaram. He summoned up all his energies from his great reservoir of wisdom and experience. He was an unstoppable creator, who never gave up, no matter how dark the situation. He reminded me that optimism is something one must purposefully marshal, a form of discipline one ought to cultivate, against all internal and external threats of dejection and hopelessness. That optimism is another word for political action.