Incubators of Creativity : Where Great Artists Are Made

Ranjit Hostoke is a cultural theorist, curator and poet. He is the author of more than 25 books, including Vanishing Acts: New & Selected Poems 1985-2005 (Penguin, 2006) and Central Time (Penguin/ Viking, 2014), and the monographs Zinny & Maidagan: Compartment/ Das Abteil (Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/ Walther König, 2010) and Atul Dodiya (Prestel, 2014). Hoskote has translated the poetry of the 14th-century Kashmiri mystic Lal Ded as I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded (Penguin Classics, 2011). With Ilija Trojanow, he has co-authored Kampfabsage (Blessing, 2007; in English as Confluences: Forgotten Histories from East and West, Yoda, 2012). With Nancy Adajania, he is co-author of The Dialogues Series (Popular, 2011), an unfolding programme of conversations with artists. With Maria Hlavajova, he is editor of Future Publics: A Critical Reader in Contemporary Art (BAK, forthcoming). Since 1993, Hoskote has curated 30 exhibitions of contemporary art, including two monographic surveys of Atul Dodiya (Bombay: Labyrinth/ Laboratory, Japan Foundation, Tokyo, 2001; and Experiments with Truth: Atul Dodiya, Works 1981-2013, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, 2013), a lifetime retrospective of Jehangir Sabavala (National Gallery of Modern Art, Bombay and New Delhi, 2005-2006), a historical survey of Indian abstraction, Nothing is Absolute (with Mehlli Gobhai; CSMVS/ The Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay, 2013), and a survey of 150 years of art by Parsi artists within the narrative of an emergent Indian modernism, No Parsi is an Island (with Nancy Adajania; National Gallery of Modern Art, Bombay, 2013-2014). Over 2000-2002, Hoskote co-curated the trans-Asian collaborative project, ‘Under Construction’ (Japan Foundation: Tokyo and other Asian centres). Hoskote co-curated the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008) He was curator of India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2011). And a jury Member of the 56th Venice Biennale.

Born in Mumbai, Kaiwan Mehta, he is a theorist and critic in the fields of visual culture, architecture, and city studies. He recently submitted his doctoraal thesis at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bengaluru, under the aegis of Manipal University; and has now published as well as exhibited his research work and ideas internationally. He authored Alice in Bhuleshwar: Navigating a Mumbai Neighbourhood (Yoda Press. New Delhi, 2009). Since March 2012 he has been the Managing Editor of Domus India (Spenta Multimedia) and writes prolifically on architetcure, aesthetics, and cities. He has set up courses in Architecture Theory as well as Art, Criticism and Theory, the politics around Craft as well as Aesthetics, and teaches across various undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Mumbai. He has been elected as the Jury Chairman for two consecutive terms (2015–17 and 2017–2019) for the international artists’ residency programme across 11 disciplines at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany. Mehta recently co-curated with Rahul Mehrotra and Ranjit Hoskote the national exhibition on architecture – “The State of Architetcure: Practices and Processes in India” (UDRI, 2016) at the NGMA, Mumbai. He has recently authored the book The Architecture of I M Kadri (Niyogi. New Delhi, 2016)

Devieka Bhojwani born in Mumbai, studied Textile Design at Sir J J Schools Of Art. Her mother, Usha R Khanna, started the Iconic Café Samovar in Mumbai in 1964, inside the Jehangir Art Gallery. Café Samovar, served for over five decades, as the watering hole, salon, dining hall and meeting place for intellectuals, Artists as well as ordinary Mumbaikars. Devieka was instrumental in setting up ‘Womens Cancer Initiative’, with the Tata Memorial Hospital in 2003, an NGO that works, to raise funds and awareness for Womens Cancers. She was recently invited to speak at The Conference Shakti: The Strength of A Woman and TedX, in Pune. She is a founder members of Citizens for Peace, a non-political organization dedicated to building a vibrant, secular, democratic Nation.

Eve Lemesle is a graduate of La Sorbonne in arts management and holds a diploma in South-Asia studies from INALCO (Paris). In 2013, she launched WAA residency, a not-for-profit artists’ residency in Mumbai that offers individual studio space, accommodation, professional networking opportunities and an intellectually stimulating environment for dialogue on visual arts practices for artists and curators. Prior to settling in Mumbai, Lemesle has run artists’ residencies in Montreal and Paris for a decade. Since she settled in Mumbai in 2009, she has also started What about art?, a first-of-its-kind arts management agency in India. WAA produces ambitious art projects within the growing South-Asian art scene. Among recent projects are production of the India-Pakistan pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, Dhaka Art Summit in Bangladesh, the solo exhibition of William Kentridge in Mumbai, the Public art program ArtC in Chennai and conservation of important art collections in South-Asia.