Artalaap

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:

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. 

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.  

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.

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.  

In this episode I, Kamayani Sharma, am in  conversation with artist Prabhakar Pachpute, among the winners of the  Artes Mundi Prize 2020 about his artistry and engagement with coal  mining in his native Chandrapur District, Maharashtra. Pachpute "works   in  an  array  of  mediums  and  materials  including  drawing,  light,   stopmotion  animations,  sound  and  sculptural  forms.  His  use  of   charcoal  has  a  direct  connection  to his  subject  matter  and   familial  roots,  coal  mines  and  coal  miners."

We discuss  highlights from 10 years of Prabhakar's practice including recent shifts  therein, his formative years as a young artist at Mumbai's Clark House  Initiative and how the aesthetic mode he adopted captures the political  and ecological aspects of mining in the era of extractive capitalism  (disguised as "development"). We also talk about frequent comparisons  with South African artist William Kentridge, inspiration from  contemporary artists grappling with history under antagonistic regimes,  and the value of artistic research and practice as a collective,  peer-driven process.

As a PhD candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Rakesh Sengupta researched early Indian cinema. His essay 'Writing from the Margins of Media: Screenwriting Practice and  Discourse During the First Indian Talkies', published in the Dec 2018 issue of Bioscope [no. 9.2] won the Best Journal Article by Screenwriting Research Network and also  received High Commendation for Screen's Annette Kuhn Debut Essay Prize. On today's episode, we talk about the way in which the lack of script archives dictated the methods of research, how the  vocation of screenwriting propelled fantasies of self-improvement and socioeconomic ascendancy in the 1930s and 1940s and the way in which the  study of early cinema has been revitalised in the contemporary context of OTT and web programming. We also have some lovely anecdotes about serendipitous discoveries of forgotten Indian cinema scripts in other corners of the world.

At the Sundance Film Festival 2021, Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh won the Special Jury Award: Impact for Change and the Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary category for their debut feature 'Writing With Fire'. On today’s  episode, we discuss the political economy of documentary filmmaking,  its practitioners’ love-hate relationship with the state (every  government media organisation in India is name-checked in this  episode!), the influence and legacy of humanism in nonfiction film and  whether its future in South Asia lies in TikTok-type formats.

18 May marks a watershed event in South Korea's  ultimately successful pro-democracy movement - the 1980 Gwangju  Uprising. As we come up on its 41st anniversary, I speak to Natasha  Ginwala, co-Artistic Director, alongside Defne Ayas, of the 13th Gwangju  Biennale (1 April 2021 - 9 May 2021). Against the backdrop of Gwangju's  position as a cultural event with a revolutionary ethos, we unpack the  philosophy driving this pandemic edition of the Biennale - notably  through the work of Catherine Malabou, Yuk Hui, Maya Indira Ganesh,  Djamila Ribeiro and others - and how it is incarnated in the works  exhibited and practices platformed. We talk about how a biennale is mounted during a global quarantine, what the significance of organic and artificial or machinic intelligence is during an age of unreason as well as how the ghosts of history cause new political ruptures through the phenomenon of recursivity. We also touch upon the role of a biennale as a recorder of change and its paradoxical implication in the very orders it aims to challenge.

On this episode, against the backdrop of Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement that arose in the wake of the military junta's coup of 1 February 2021, I speak to acclaimed Burmese artist Moe Satt about his performance- and multimedia- based practice. We talk about how visual arts practitioners navigate censorship and restraints on civil liberties. We also discuss the way in which Myanmar's independent cultural organisations like AMCA are engaging in visual activism, how Generation Z and Boomers alike are splitting up across the virtual and actual domains and joining hands against the junta and, indeed, the importance of hands as symbols of solidarity in Moe's work, which we discuss in detail.

This episode is the second in a two-part series on  political webcomics in India. In the context of an increasingly  repressive regime, the role of allegory, especially in the mode of  fantasy and parody, becomes vital. On the Indian Internet, an example is  the figure  of  Rashtraman, a dubious superhero starring in his own webcomic series. I speak to its creator Appupen, a visual artist and musician who  tells stories from the mythical dimension called Halahala. Having published several books of graphic fiction, he launched  his online comic series with the popular superhero satire  'Rashtraman' and the politically charged ‘Dystopian Times’ in  2015. He is the  founder/editor of Brainded India, an arts collective with an agenda. We  discuss how visual satire can show us the workings of power, the history  of cartooning as political critique in post-Independence India and why  the MCU is a technocratic dream.

Photographer Hari Katragadda & writer/editor Shweta Upadhyay were awarded The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts' Photobook Grant 2020 for their collaboration 'I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you'. In this episode, we talk about this award-winning work through its makers' process and influences and the contemporary status of the photobook in India, in the wake of Dayanita Singh's pioneering practice. The route we take winds through discussions of ancient poetry, avant-garde cinema and Gothic marriages.