A.R.T. 2020 - The Intersections of Science, Technology and Art

Abhishek Hazra’s art practice traverses a diverse yet closely interconnected mesh of interests. Social histories of science and an ironic fascination with the lived lives of theoretical ‘toolboxes’ are some of his ongoing preoccupations. Increasingly interested in performativity while being ambivalent about privileging ‘liveness’ and ‘embodiment’, his recent lecture-performances explore speculative histories of knowledge formations through the figure of the amateur enthusiast. Abhishek has exhibited widely that include MACBA, Barcelona, Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016, Experiment Marathon-Serpentine Gallery, London and Reykjavik Art Museum, Kunstmuseum Bern, Bose Pacia, New York, MAXXI Museum, Rome, GallerySKE, Bangalore, KHOJ, Kiran Nadar Museum and OCAD, Toronto. He has been a Charles Wallace scholar and an artist-in-residence in various residences including Gasworks, London, Art Omi, New York and SymbioticA, Centre of Excellence in Biological Arts, Perth. Abhishek has also been the recipient of multiple awards including the 2011 Sanskriti Award for Visual Art.

Pooja Sood is an established leader in the arts and culture sector in South Asia. She is a founding member and Director of Khoj International artists Association which is an independent art organisation based in New Delhi. Core to her work is the belief that alternative and experimental arts practices are essential elements of civil society discourse in a democracy and her professional practice is built around fostering the institutional and cultural infrastructure necessary to support artists whose work is of critical relevance to society. Sood’s interventions have helped shape the field of alternative contemporary art practice, enabled innovation in collaboration and institution building and pushed experiments in curatorial practices, at critical moments in South Asian contemporary art. She is deeply committed to building solidarities between artists in India and the global south by fostering critical spaces for creative expression and dialogue. Over the past three decades, she has straddled the corporate, NGO and the governmental art sectors with equal facility, developing core competencies in international cooperation, institution building, strategic planning, curating, fundraising and capacity building.

Shivaprasad Khened is currently the Director of the Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai. He has served as Director of Science Museum in Delhi and Bangalore and National Gallery of Modern Art, (NGMA) Mumbai. He is credited with more than 50 scientific papers, exhibition catalogues and articles. He has curated several exhibitions on varying subjects and his latest exhibition is the Cricket Connects: India–UK exhibition. The “Information Revolution” gallery, which he co-curated won the Dibner award instituted by the Smithsonian. His other curatorial works include; Our Technology Heritage, Our Science and Technology Heritage, 100 Years of Nobel Prize, Human Genome and Beyond, Our Body Guards (Immune System), Pulses the Smart Food, Cricket Connects exhibition for Australia and South Africa. He is also involved in the setting-up of the National Museum of Indian Cinema in Films Division campus. One of the exhibition that he curated “Sir M Visvesvaraya: The Legendary Nation Builder”, was selected for the “Pride of India” award for exhibition, which he curated and exhibited during the 102nd India Science Congress, at the Mumbai University. He is the recipient of the Smithsonian scholarship (1988) and the 16th NES, Jagadguru Shankaracharya, H.H, Sri Jayendrasaraswathi, National Eminence Award (2017). Under his able leadership, Nehru Science Centre received the prestigious National Award (2017) for the Best Communication Campaign (External Publics) instituted by the Public Relations Society of India for the exhibition “The Future of Food: Pulses”.

Jaya Ramchandani is a science educator, entrepreneur, and curator. She teaches physics, general science, and maths to students and adults alike. She co-founded Sirius Interactive (siriusinteractive.co.in) a language solutions provider for researchers, and The Story Of Foundation (www.thestoryof.org), an interdisciplinary, informal learning project for 21st century inquirers. Jaya has been involved in a number of innovative science education projects such as UNAWE's Universe in a Box (www.unawe.org), AstroEdu (astroedu.iau.org), a peer-reviewed astronomy education platform, and, more recently, Sublime’s Teaching for Artistic Innovation program (tfai.in) as a curriculum designer. She is a proponent of interdisciplinary approaches to learning, with a special interest in encouraging dialogue and partnerships between multiple stakeholders to impact education policy.