17
Mar 2025
9:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Drama Classes for Kids
Mayoor Private School, 42nd St. Al Wathba South, Abu Dhabi, UAE
In the
concluding episode of this Series, we will engage with the perennial question
of an audience for the arts. Since no art form achieves completion until it
has been received by an audience or a viewership, the beholder’s share in the
aesthetic process is a considerable one. Audiences form an important, if
relatively unorganized, sector of cultural production. They function as
recipients of artistic expression, as participants in institutions or
occasions such as the museum, the gallery, the concert, and the festival, as
contributors to an ongoing dialogue about the arts, and as and stakeholders
in cultural institutions. How do institutions create and sustain their
audiences? How might institutions renew the experiences that they offer their
audiences?
Join Leandre D'Souza, Co-Founder & Curator of Art Oxygen and Asad
Lalljee, Curator, Royal Opera House and Co-curator, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival,
Literature in conversation with Ranjit Hoskote, Curator, Cultural Theorist
and Jury Member of the 56th Venice Biennale as they try to determine the
optimal interplay between familiarity and criticality that can keep a
cultural ecosystem vibrant.
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.
Read more
Leandre D'Souza holds a Master's in Arts Criticism from City University. Since 2009, she's run ArtOxygen (ArtO2) which is aimed at curating and producing art projects in public, open spaces. Since 2010, she's organized [en]counters, a public art festival dealing with issues affecting the everyday life of Mumbai. In September 2013, she was invited to curate the participation of Indian and international artists at the biennial Haein Art Project at Haeinsa Temple in South Korea. In 2014, she received an award for Culture and Change bestowed by the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development which enabled the production of [en]counters 2015 - Spaces in Transition at the iconic CST Terminus. She also curates independently, and has recently done so at the Sensorium 2015/16 Art Festival for Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts, among others.
Read more
"Asad Lalljee serves as the CEO of AVID Learning, a public programming initiative and creative platform under the Essar Group. Asad brings several years of advertising, publishing, marketing and business development experience, both in international and domestic markets. Prior to relocating to India in 2010, Asad worked for 14 years as one of the ‘Mad Men’ advertising executives on New York's Madison Avenue. As Vice-President for McCann-Erickson, he managed Verizon Wireless' B2B business, deploying global campaigns across media platforms. He previously worked with Hill Holiday, another subsidiary of the third-largest advertising conglomerate, IPG.He has also served as the Marketing Director for Carnot Books USA, the U.S. subsidiary to the French-owned Editions Carnot. Under Asad’s leadership as the CEO of AVID, a wide variety of cultural programming was launched, including thought leadership on sustainable urbanism, regional culture, heritage preservation and social media as a tool for connecting lives and communities. He has created unique IP’s for AVID such as ‘Multipolis Mumbai’ and ‘AVID Spectrum’, KGAF Series. In 2016, Asad also co-curated the Literature Section of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival along with Ranjit Hoskote and will continue in 2017. In the past six years, Asad has brought AVID to the forefront of India’s cultural hub by developing opportunities at some of the country’s and region’s largest cultural platforms: Art Dubai; Jaipur Literature Festival; India Art Fair; Literature Live; Kala Ghoda Arts Festival; and India Art Festival. Asad has also cultivated partnerships with leading Indian and international institutions including British Council, Oxford University, Columbia University’s Studio-X, TEDx, Toronto International Film Festival, National Centre of Performing Arts, and University of Mumbai. Asad’s career also demonstrates his passion for new technology and media. AVID now has a robust social media presence. In 2016, He was appointed to serve as Curator of the newly reopened and restored Royal Opera House, Mumbai for which he has designed a robust curatorial programme which goes over and above the performance arts and spans the breadth of arts and culture. In his spare time while in New York, he pursued his interest in the arts by serving as Literary Director for the Indo-American Arts Council from 2003-2010. He holds a B.A. in Economics from St. Xavier's College (Mumbai) and an M.A. in Global Marketing Communications from Emerson College (Boston).
Read more
