Artalaap

On this special Artalaap episode, Kamayani Sharma speaks to Kunsthalle Winterthur director Geraldine Tedder about writing and curating practices through the metaphor of the vestibular system.

They talk about how criticism and curating can help stabilise and situate ourselves in the contemporary, and about the many forms that the relationships between writing, speaking and listening can take.

Through of all this, they reflect together on how repairing, caring and loving can be modes of creating knowledge.

Click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ to access the episode transcript.

OUR GUEST

Geraldine Tedder is a curator and writer based in Zürich. She is director of Kunsthalle Winterthur.

CREDITS

This episode was produced as part of the Art Writers’ Award 2024 residency at Villa Sträuli, Winterthur with the support of Pro Helvetia and TAKE On Art magazine.

Producer: Square Wave Studios, New Delhi

Brand design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee

Episode graphics: Amir Bin Rafi

Transcription: Priya Thakur

Special thanks: Merly Knörle Izquierdo, Nicole Bachmann, Damian Christinger, Bibliotheken Winterthur

Additional support: Raghav Sagar

Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CCBY-NC 4.0]

LINKS

Geraldine Tedder

— 'You Are Probably Completely Oblivious That This Text Actually Is About You', 2020.

https://brand-new-life.org/b-n-l/you-are-probably-completely-oblivious-that-this-text-actually-is-about-you/

— 'Notes on Furniture' in collaboration with Chantal Kaufmann, audiobook, 2020.

Kamayani Sharma

— 'Loving with Language: Reflections on Writing Alongside Art', 2019. https://media.journoportfolio.com/users/19952/uploads/eb1d39a0-fa71-4665-bf97-6af6ec3740c1.pdf

— Book review of Arshi Ahmadzai's 'Nafas: Isolation Diaries', TAKE On Art [South Asia], 2024.

https://media.journoportfolio.com/users/19952/uploads/853acf00-eedd-4c65-b232-f7b10aaa46c4.pdf

— Artalaap Ep. 17: Tales of Silence, podcast, 2022.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Ee8hbSAE8DzWASUhrlkLc?si=E2YY4HctRSSg1z3hY6KK6Q

Other

Art Writers’ Award 2024 blog for TAKE On Art magazine:

⁠https://takeonartmagazine.com/blog/⁠

Kunsthalle Winterthur:

⁠https://kunsthallewinterthur.ch/⁠

CONTENTS

00:00 – Introduction & Context

02:00 – Defining ‘Vestibular’ & Episode Themes

03:00 – Writing, Orality, and Critical Positions

08:00 – Orality as Challenge to Print Culture

12:00 – Performativity, Misinformation & Media Forms

15:00 – Podcasting as Critical Practice

18:45 – Curatorial Conversations & Gossip as Subversion

21:45 – Oral Histories & Restoring Lost Voices

24:30 – Care in Curating & Opening Processes

28:30 – Breaking Down Curatorial Authority

29:45 – Spatial Metaphors & the Vestibular

36:45 – Erotics, Love, and Reparative Reading

42:00 – The Transcript as Inter-Script

45:00 – Collaborative Writing & Challenging Structures

46:45 – Demystifying Institutional Realities

48:00 – Closing & Reflections

Click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ to access the full list of works cited and time-stamped contents summaries.

On this Artalaap episode, Kamayani Sharma speaks to Prarthna Singh and writer Snigdha Poonam abouttheir multimedia project 2024: Notes from a Generation.

In five years, the two artists travelled all over Indiaphotographing and interviewing people between the ages of 18 and 25, who would vote the national elections of 2024.

We talk about how to conduct photoshoots and interviews with a diverse swathe of Gen Z Indians from all overthe country, what it means to assemble and frame an audiovisual archive of citizens and why hope was so central to this long-term project of seeing and listening.

Click here to access the Image Guide.

Click here to access the time-stamped transcript.

OUR GUESTS

Prarthna Singh’s work explores questions of feminineidentity and gender, especially as it intersects with the fraught politics of nationalism in contemporary India. Her work has appeared in publications worldwide including TIME, The New York Times, The Guardian and the BBC. She has exhibited internationally, most recently at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Her self-published book, Har Shaam Shaheen Bagh: One Hundred Days of Resistance was named one of the best photo books of 2022 by LensCulture.

Snigdha Poonam is a journalist and writer investigating trends in India's politics, culture, and society. She has worked for The Hindustan Times and The Caravan in Delhi, and The Hindu in Bangalore. Her articles and essays have also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Economist, Granta, The Atlantic, CNN, and The Financial Times. Released in 2018, her first book, Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing Their World, has won awards and nominations worldwide.

CREDITS

Producer: Square Wave Studios, New Delhi

Images courtesy Prarthna Singh

Design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee

Promo artwork: Jasper Levi

Production associate: Amir Bin Rafi

Additional support: Raghav Sagar & Anu Balasubramaniam

Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CCBY-NC 4.0]

CONTENTS

00:00 - 00:37 Welcome to the episode.

00:37 – 01:02 Image Guide link.

01:02 - 03:34 Introduction

03:34 - 07:48 How did the project begin?

07:49 - 14:57 Organising the logistics of photoshoots& interviews

14:58 - 20:57 The politics of the photographic portraitin the era of the selfie.

20:58 – 23:22 Developing portraits through words.

23:23 – 26:47 Frames of citizenship and listening in.

26:48 – 31:15 Excerpts and comments about the audioclips of soundscapes from the exhibition.

31:15 – 33:30 Matters of trust.

31:31 - 35:43 The temporality of the portrait.

35:44 – 38:25  What’snext for the series?

38:35 – 39:28 – Closing comments by the host.

REFERENCES

Ariella Azoulay, The Civil Contract of Photography, 2008.

Snidgha Poonam, Dreamers, 2018.

Kamayani Sharma, "Prarthna Singh: 100 Days of Resistance", Aperture, Summer 2021.

https://archive.aperture.org/article/2021/2/2/prarthna-singh

On this Artalaap episode, I, Kamayani speak to Jayant Parashar about his family's legacy -- a pre-Independence film magazine called Film Pictorial, started in Lahore by his grandfather and great-uncle, RK Parashar and ML Parashar. A well-regarded periodical of the 1940s, Film Pictorial shut down once the brothers moved to Delhi after the 1947 Partition.

We talk about how Jayant came across the magazine, its role -- similar to other high-profile film publications of that era -- as a snapshot of South Asia's urban cinema culture straddling India and Pakistan's Independence as well as the scattershot, digital preservation of lost archives through which we reconstruct and respond to that era.

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST HERE:

Jayant Parashar is a Mumbai-based cinematographer and musician. Film Pictorial (1941-1947) was an English-language magazine on Hindustani cinema co-founded and edited by his grandfather and great-uncle in Lahore.

Credits:

Producer: Squarewave Studios, New Delhi

Executive Producer: Kanishka Sharma

Production Associate: Priya Thakur

Images courtesy Jayant Parashar via Surjit Singh

Design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee

Marketing: Dipalie Mehta

Additional support: Raghav Sagar

Patreon support: Shalmoli Halder

Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CC BY-NC 4.0]

CONTENTS

0.00-02.30 – Introduction

02.30- 07.40– Discovering a family legacy.

07.40- 15.00 – Back issues of Film Pictorial on the internet.

15.00 - 18.51 – The Parashar brothers and their engagement with the pre-Independence film industry.

18.51 - 27.34 – The wide range of topics the magazine has explored, both serious and light-hearted versus the present day reporting on the film industry.

27.34- 31.37 – Film Pictorial after the Partition, and the value of vintage film magazines in the present.

31.37- 33.28 – How family legacies impact worldviews.

On this Artalaap episode, I, Kamayani Sharma, speak to artist Pritika Chowdhry, whose solo exhibition 'Unbearable Memories, Unspeakable Histories' featuring her anti-memorials to the Partition is currently on view at the South Asia Institute, Chicago.

We talk about the politics of memorialising the 1947 South Asian Partition, the aesthetic challenge of representing collective trauma and the influence of feminist historiography on understanding the Partition.

We also touch upon drawing parallels with other colonial divisions of territory as well as ongoing civil conflict in the global south, and the limits of testimony in the contemporary period.

You can learn more about the exhibition here:

https://www.saichicago.org/exhibition/pritika-chowdhry-unbearable-memories-unspeakable-histories or at the South Asia Institute, Chicago's Instagram page @southasiainstitute.

Click here to access the Image+ Guide & view the material being discussed in the podcast: https://sites.google.com/view/artalaap-podcast-resources/episode-18.

For a time-stamped list of Contents, click here: http:/bit.ly/3CeUTWz

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST HERE:

Pritika Chowdhry is a feminist and postcolonial artist, curator, and writer whose work is in both public and private collections. Chowdhry has exhibited nationally and internationally in group and solo exhibitions in the Weisman Art Museum, Queens Museum, Hunterdon Museum, Islip Art Museum, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, DoVA Temporary, Brodsky Center, and Cambridge Art Gallery. Her work has been written up in various scholarly publications, including the journals GeoHumanities, Social Transformations Journal of the Global South, and Progress in Human Geography, in addition to news outlets such as CBS, NBC, and Hindustan Times. She is the recipient of Vilas International Travel Fellowship, Edith and Sinaiko Frank Fellowship for a Woman in the Arts, Wisconsin Arts Board grant, and Minnesota State Arts Board grant. She has presented her studio research projects at various national conferences, such as International Arts Symposium at NYU, The Contested Terrains of Globalization at UC-Irvine, and the South Asian Conference at UW-Madison. Chowdhry holds an MFA in Studio Art and an MA in Visual Culture and Gender Studies from UW-Madison and has taught at Macalester College and the College of Visual Arts. Born and raised in India, Chowdhry is currently based in Chicago.

Credits:

Producer: Squarewave Studios, New Delhi

Executive Producer: Kanishka Sharma

Intern: Priya Thakur

Images courtesy Pritika Chowdhry

Design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee

Marketing: Dipalie Mehta

Additional support: Raghav Sagar

Patreon support: Shalmoli Halder

Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CC BY-NC 4.0]

With two seasons behind us, ARTalaap is taking a hiatus over the summer. 

We will be back soon with all-new programming -- stay tuned!

Follow us for updates and information on Instagram at @art.alaap and on Twitter @rtalaap. 

You can write to us with feedback, suggestions and requests for guests at: [email protected].

Thank you for your support!

On this episode, I Kamayani speak to Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai whose solo exhibition 'Naguftaha-e-Havva' ('The Unspoken Words of Havva') is currently on view at Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai as well as online on the In Touch platform. 

https://www.artintouch.in/exhibitions/13-chatterjee-lal-arshi-irshad-ahmadzai-naguftaha-e-havva-the-unspoken-words-of-havva/ 

We talk about journeying from a small town to a career in the visual arts, the evolution of a distinct figural language, the possibilities of abstraction as an aesthetic mode during a period of repression and Arshi's engagement with time and space in her process-based practice. We also touch upon the use of text as image, the spiritual aspect of art-making, the gendering of material and the abiding influence of Zarina and Nasreen Mohamedi. 

Learn about our guest: 

Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai born in Najibabad, graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts (2011) from Aligarh Muslim University and later pursued a Masters in Fine Arts from Jamia Millia Islamia (2013). She won the Inlaks Fine Art Award in 2019. Working with a range of mediums including painting, printmaking and photography, Ahmadzai’s artistic practice is centred around women. Her knowledge of Urdu, Persian and Arabic allows her to understand the nuances of language, which find their way into her work. She lives and works in Weimar, Germany. 

Click here to access the Image+ Guide & view the material being discussed in the podcast: https://sites.google.com/view/artalaap-podcast-resources/episode-17 

Click here for the time-stamped Contents page: bit.ly/3Ofjmyn

Click here for the English-language transcript: bit.ly/37PeIGT

Credits: 

Producer: Varun Kapahi 

Executive Producer: Kanishka Sharma 

Intern: Priya Thakur 

Images: Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai; Blueprint 12, New Delhi; Shrine Empire, New Delhi. 

Design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee 

Marketing: Dipalie Mehta 

Additional support: Raghav Sagar, Shalmoli Halder, Arunima Nair, Jayant Parashar. 

Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CC BY-NC 4.0]

In this episode, I, Kamayani Sharma speak to the curators of the 4th Kathmandu Triennale titled "2077" -- Sheelasha Rajbhandari and Hit Man Gurung. They worked alongside Artistic Director Cosmin Costinas to mount the ongoing edition. (originally scheduled for 2020 but deferred due to the COVID-19 pandemic). The Triennale features hundreds of artists from around the world at five venues across Kathmandu. 

We talk about the Himalayan cultural zone, modern and contemporary Nepali art, decolonial curatorial approaches and the idea of indigenous worlding through aesthetics. We also touch upon the logistics of organising the Triennale in a multilingual & stratified context, the matter of continued economic support from the West, the need for government funding and the place of South Asia as a "region" in a "global" art configuration.  

You can learn more about the Triennale through their social media – @kathmandu.triennale on Instagram and Facebook. 

Learn about our guests:  

Hit Man Gurung’s works are concerned with some of the most pressing socio-political issues of Nepal, including internal and international mass migration, the legacy of the decade-long Maoist insurgency in the country, as well as the recent pervasive effects of global capitalism in Nepal. Deeply concerned with the impact of these larger forces on individuals, communities, and society at large, Gurung infuses his paintings, documentary photo collages, performance and installation works with political conviction and personal poetry. Gurung participated in major national and international art exhibitions. He is a co-founder of artist collective ArTree Nepal.  

Sheelasha Rajbhandari is interested in exploring alternative and plural narratives by learning the value of folktales, folklore, oral histories, mythologies, material culture, performance, and rituals and placing them as evidence, along with references to mainstream history and narratives. Her long term research projects and artistic practice often juxtapose these contradictions and synthesise the knowledge and experiences that result from individual and collective discourses. Through her works, she frequently tries to encounter the simple yet socially forbidden and taboo subject matters, with a focus on women’s struggles, celebrating their resilience. Her works have been a part of major international exhibitions. She is a co-founder of artist collective ArTree Nepal.  

Gurung and Rajbhandari have been working collaboratively on multiple projects, including “12 Bishakh - Camp.Hub'' Post Earthquake Community Art Project, in which they were Co-Artistic Directors. They are also co-contributors to several books including ‘Breaking Views’, ‘Absolute Humidity’, a.o.  

Click here to access the Image+ Guide & view the material being discussed in the podcast: https://sites.google.com/view/artalaap-podcast-resources/episode-16.  

Click here for the time-stamped contents.  

Credits:  

Producer: Varun Kapahi  

Executive Producer: Kanishka Sharma  

Intern: Priya Thakur  

Images courtesy Kathmandu Triennale  

Design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee 

Marketing: Dipalie Mehta  

Additional support: Raghav Sagar  

Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CC BY-NC 4.0]

On this episode, it's gonna be just me, ARTalaap creator and your host, Kamayani Sharma.

I talk about my work on the cinema of cult Films Division auteur Pramod Pati -- through archival audio footage, clips from Pati's films, original commentary (and joking into the void.)

In light of the Indian government's recent widely-criticised move to merge public film units, I dive into an important moment in the history of the Film Division (FD) through the practice of one of its filmmakers.

I discuss how the sound design of Pramod Pati's experimental shorts, produced by the Indian government at the end of the 1960s, have a science-fictional quality. This sonic sci-fi is indicative of the futuristic ambitions of the Indian state modernising the mediascape during this era, through the technologies of radio, TV and cinema.

This episode is an adaptation of my essay "Archeology of an Experiment: The sci-fi cinema of Pramod Pati" from the Oct. 2015 issue of 'Studies in South Asian Film and Media' (citation below.)

Learn about the host:

Kamayani Sharma is an independent writer, researcher, podcaster and translator. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Vox, Momus, Aperture, Frieze, The White Review, Art Monthly, ART India and The Caravan. She has contributed to edited volumes including 'South Asian Gothic: Haunted cultures, histories and media' (University of Wales Press, 2021). A Kalpalata Fellow in Visual Culture Writing 2022 for Scroll.in, she was a recipient of the Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation: TAKE On Writing Travel Grant 2015, critic-in-residence at Dharti Arts Residency 2018 and a finalist at the International Awards for Art Criticism 2020. Sharma runs South Asia’s first independent visual culture podcast ARTalaap.

Click here to access the Image+ Guide & view the material being discussed in the podcast: https://sites.google.com/view/artalaap-podcast-resources/episode-15

Credits:

Producer: Varun Kapahi

Executive Producer: Kanishka Sharma

Intern: Priya Thakur

Images: Films Division

Special thanks: Amol Ranjan

Design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee

Marketing: Dipalie Mehta

Additional support: Raghav Sagar, Shalmoli Halder, Arunima Nair, Jayant Parashar.

Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CC BY-NC 4.0]

ORIGINAL ESSAY:

Sharma, Kamayani, Archeology of an experiment: The science-fiction cinema of Pramod Pati, October 2015, Studies in South Asian Film and Media 6(2):147-164.

DOI:10.1386/safm.6.2.147_1f

In this episode I, Kamayani Sharma, speak to artist, researcher & educator Ita Mehrotra, author of the graphic book ‘Shaheen Bagh: A Graphic Recollection’ (Yoda Press, 2021). On the second anniversary of the incredible protests led by India's Muslim women against the CAA & NRC, in this episode we discuss the role of language in the public sphere, how illustration captures the contemporary differently from lens-based practices and how the graphic serial form allows movement among different registers & types of material. We also talk about mixed media methods of comics-making and how graphic nonfiction can and does function as a text for children & young adults.  

Learn about our guest:  

Ita Mehrotra is a visual artist, researcher and educator. Her work has been published and exhibited by Zubaan Books, Goethe Institute, AdAstra Comix, Yoda press, Fumetto Festival, The Wire and KHOJ, among others. Her recent graphic book ‘Shaheen Bagh, A Graphic Recollection’ voices moments and memories from the vast anti CAA uprising that spread across India over the winter of 2019 (Yoda Press, 2021).  

Ita is currently Director of Artreach India, a not for profit that works at the intersections of art, inclusive education and community development. She has been a recipient of the Arts for Good Fellowship (Singapore Foundation), the Gender Bender Grant (Goethe Institute and Sandbox Collective), Fumetto Festival Apprenticeship Grant (Prohelvetia Swiss Arts Council), Connectors of the Future Fellowship (Swedish Institute) and Negotiating Routes: Art & Ecology Grant (KHOJ Artists Association). Ita was Visiting Faculty, Visual Arts, at Ashoka University in Spring 2021 and has an MPhil from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU.  

Click here to access the Image+ Guide & view the material being discussed in the podcast: https://sites.google.com/view/artalaap-podcast-resources/episode-14  

Credits:  

Producer: Abhishek S.  

Intern: Priya Thakur  

Images courtesy Yoda Press.  

Design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee  

Marketing: Dipalie Mehta  

Additional support: Raghav Sagar, Kanishka Sharma, Amy Goldstone-Sharma, Shalmoli Halder, Arunima Nair, Jayant Parashar.  

Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CC BY-NC 4.0]  

Contents:  

0.14 - 1.54 – Introduction 

1.57 - 6.52 – How Ita’s academic engagement influenced her art and the significance of the university campus in political education. 

6.53 - 11.43 – The use of various analog and digital media to draw and the process of making the book. 

11.43 - 20.31 – Deep listening, responsive drawings, and the play between image and text. 

20.32 - 28.28 – Arriving at graphic nonfiction for the documentation of the Shaheen Bagh protests, not as evidence but as an extension of the events. 

28.29 - 43.19 – Structuring the book: planning out chapters and storyboarding. Understanding Shaheen Bagh beyond just resistance to CAA-NRC. 

43.20 - 52.42 – Space and time on the page vs. screen.

52.43 - 58.45 –  The matter of subject-position, collaborative strategies of working and using religious and caste privilege to express solidarity. 

58.46 - 1.06.40 – Ita’s work as an arts-based educator and how books shape the politics of the children and young adults in the current moment. 

1.06.41 - 1.12.03 – Influences and models as an artist and a comment on the future of the form in India and, more broadly, in South Asia.