What is the most urgent need that you have?
Understand how artists in India can engage confidently with urban and rural India in their practice to demonstrate an active social and political role, which is sustainable through leveraging public interest in their work.
What is the best/ interesting case or project on new media arts that you have just recently experienced?
I have recently been a part of projects by Khoj International Artists’ Association (Khoj) and Center for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA).
As an artist-in-residence for a month at Khoj in New Delhi. Khoj is situated in a dynamic urban pocket of Delhi called Khirkee and has active community art projects in and around Khirkee. It offers studio spaces to artists from India and around the world and encourages them to work on experimental, process-based and ephemeral projects. They urge artists to think independently of the frameworks of the formal art world. I was part of their residency program for Masters students and recent graduates.
CEMA is a new-media lab in Bangalore, India. Post-graduate students get space, resources and a social circle at CEMA to initiate and work on projects. The “experimental” nature of our program means that at all times we are expected to engage “critically” with media, read deeply into the histories and contexts our projects engage with and evolve a process for ourselves which iteratively helps us realize our objectives. At CEMA, the artists-in-residence, the students, the visitors and the workshops all are inter-disciplinary and we constantly hope to map new terrain through collaborations or approaches. The program at CEMA is entirely practice-based, fueled by independent and group projects by artists at the lab. I joined the lab as a post-graduate student in 2007.
In your opinion, is there a potential for change on and change through a policy level, i.e. has the status of policy as an accelerator/ a meaningful factor for practice changed?
Yes, I do believe that a liberal, open and inclusive national cultural policy can have an impact on the framework and context in which artistic practices operate. In India we do not have an understanding or consensus about how alternative/fringe arts practices are important for the national and regional cultural ecosystem. There is a possibility to create a broad, inter-disciplinary dialog to understand how India’s traditional and contemporary arts practices contribute to national and regional progress. For example, policies which require all publicly funded productions and publications to be openly licensed could set off a positive trend. This could on the other hand fill gaps in India’s needs for educational and archival needs. Designing a policy framework in a participative manner, which evolves and adapts with the needs and readiness of the times might be an interesting challenge. A coherent national policy which encourages cultural entrepreneurs to develop new models, structures and distribution mechanisms for artists might generate a lot of interest in the area.
