Panelists:

- Ishita Shah

- Indu Antony

- Shilpa Vijayakrishnan

- Siddhi Bhandari

- Suresh Jayaram

- Shuchi Kapoor

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Ishita Shah is trained as an interior designer and an architectural historian. Over the last few years, she has been developing a community-based curatorial practice, which focuses on cultural preservation and creative collaborations across individuals, families, and organizations invested in building a culture for archiving in India and across South Asia. Her work is situated under the aegis of a self-founded collective, Curating for Culture. She is currently a consulting archivist and curator at Pattani Archives, Bengaluru, Queer India Archives, Mumbai, and Shreyas Foundation, Ahmedabad. She also teaches across various programs and cities.

Ishita has previously worked with Biome Environmental Solutions Pvt. Ltd. to curate their recent publication, Biome Diaries: Ecological Architecture from India, as well as collaborated with organizations like the National Centre for Biological Sciences, INTACH Bengaluru, Arthshila Ahmedabad, the Ministry of Culture India; to curate and develop a wide range of public interpretation projects. Before this, she was an educator and the coordinator to the UNESCO Chair in Culture, Habitat, and Sustainable Development at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design, and Technology. She has also been the founding archivist and oral historian at CEPT Archives and worked with the Royal Institute of British Architects (UK), INSITE Magazine, SPADE India Research Cell, and Design Innovation and Craft Resource Centre.

Ishita is also a Graham Foundation Grant recipient (2020), Khoj CISA Fellow (2021), and a fellowship student at The Alternative Art School (2022)."

Indu Antony is a multidisciplinary artist based out of Bangalore and Kerala in India. Her works comprise of understanding feministic stands which often unites her larger practice. She understands the presence of gendered bodies in public spaces and has conversations around this with her long-standing project - Cecilia’ed. She is passionate about community work and co-founded a community art centre called Kanike in 2019 with two other artists and in 2021 founded - Namma Katte (a women's community arts and leisure centre). 

Shilpa Vijayakrishnan is Head of Education & Outreach at the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru. She has conceptualised and led the education function at MAP since its inception, during the course of which she has curated exhibitions specially designed for younger audiences, as well as designed and delivered programmes for various other audience groups. Former editor of the Tasveer Journal, she has also written for its eponymous print edition Tasveer Journal, as well as the publications Maharanis: Royal Women of India, Gardens of the Mind: Swapak Nayak and Gilles Bensimon and Figures in Time: Bourne & Shepherd. She holds a postgraduate degree in Arts & Aesthetics from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU, Delhi) and has curated online narratives for MAP on the Google Arts & Culture platform on a range of subjects including Women in Hindi Cinema and the Pichwai painting tradition, among others.

Siddhi Bhandari holds a PhD from the University of Delhi, where she worked on the sociology of photography for a thesis titled ‘Photographers and Photography: A Sociological Study’. At present, she is Faculty at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bengaluru, India. Her research and teaching interests include research methods in the social sciences, material culture, visual culture and oral history.

Suresh Jayaram is a visual artist, art historian, and curator from Bangalore. He is the Founder and director of Visual Art Collective/1.Shanthiroad Studio is an international artist’s residency and alternative art space in Bangalore.

He is involved in art practice, urban mapping, archiving, curation, and arts education. His keen interest in environmental and urban developmental issues influences his work. He has authored the book "Bangalore's Lalbagh Chronicle of the Garden and the City"as a writer.

Shuchi Kapoor, documentary photojournalist and Co-founder of the Chennai Photo Biennale Foundation, explores visual storytelling, research, and education. She views photography as a medium of inquiry into representation and visual cultures.

CATCH THE CONVERSATION HERE!