Blurring Boundaries: Collaboration + Art Making Today

Amshu Chukki is an artist based out of Bengaluru. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University of Baroda in 2014. He was listed in the ‘Forbes India 30 under 30’ in 2016 and is a recipient of the Inlaks Fine Arts Award in 2014. His debut exhibition, The Tour, was held at Chatterjee & Lal in 2017. He has been part of many prestigious shows and residencies both nationally and internationally. In Amshu Chukki’s work, experimental video and images become a way of imagining new worlds. His practice is site informed and explores the themes of reality and fiction through multimedia artworks in a manner that contemplates the relationship between the landscape and the body where the act of deciphering the landscape, invokes the site. The landscape in turn becomes the protagonist and narratives unfold onto the site.

Born in Najibabad, Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai graduated with a Bachelors in Fine Art from the Aligarh Muslim University and a Masters in Fine Art from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Her practice has focused on the role of women, particularly those that are bound within religious orthodoxies. Inspired by the texts of various poets and philosophers, Ahmadzai’s artworks juxtapose image and text to comment on women and their roles, some in love and some victims to political terrorism. Ahmadzai’s collaborative practice, which include Lihaaf (Quilt) involves women from various local communities who stitch a common narrative on a larger quilt. This project was one of the recipients of the five million incidents grant from the Goethe-Institut, New Delhi. Ahmadzai was a recipient of the Inlaks Award in 2019 and has since exhibited in multiple exhibitions in India. She lives between Kabul and New Delhi.

Salik Ansari is a multi-disciplinary Artist and Designer based in Mumbai. He holds a BFA degree in Fine art from Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai 2014, and an MDes degree in Communication Design from IDC, IIT Bombay 2017. Salik have exhibited pro¡ects in India, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and the UK. He has been a recipient of international art and design residencies at Delfina Foundation (London 2019), Fabrica Communication Research Center (Italy 2018- 2019), G39 (Cardiff 2018), and Futur Foundation (Switzerland 2014). He has been nominated for the Hublot design award, Switzerland 2017. During his master's program Salik was a Tata Fellow for grassroots innovation and design at TCTD IIT Bombay (2015-2017).

Manjot Kaur inquires the social, cultural, political and anthropological concerns of population, environment, and sustenance by employing the tools of absurdity, uncertainty, randomness and abstraction. She navigates between drawing, painting, installation, video, sound and performance. Currently, she is artist in residence at Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht for the year 2020- 21. She has been an artist in residence at 1. Shanthiroad, Bangalore, 2019; Unidee, Citadellarte – Fondazione Pistolleto, Italy on full scholarship by Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, India, 2018; Museo Casa Masaccio Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea, San Giovanni Valdarno (Italy) – a cross-institutional program with Clark House Initiative, Mumbai, 2018; Khoj International Artists’ Association – Peers18, New Delhi, 2018. She has received State Award from Punjab and Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi (State Academies of Art), Chandigarh, India, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2012; Sohan Qadri Fellowship, Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi (State Academy of Art), Chandigarh, India 2017.

Sanket Jadia is interested in the narratives and counter-narratives that formulate the public discourse, or rather ‘popular’ discourse around moments of history of violence —How do representations of critical junctions in history shape the way society looks back on them? What form does collective public memory take with the absence of imageries, and vice versa? Sanket Jadia, is an Inlaks Fine Arts Awardee (2017), Khoj Peers resident (2014), and was recently featured in Forbes India 30 under 30 (2020).

Tonoy Sarma is a graphic designer / visual artist. He loves making humour driven art, mostly in the form of animated GIFs.

Veeranganakumari Solanki is an independent curator and writer. Her research interest lies in the manner in which images are disseminated and interpreted, ways in which interdisciplinary forms and art merge to create dialogues that travel from public spaces into private ones and the way curatorial research can be structured around artistic practices that expand the ideas of medium specificity through story-telling. Her curatorial projects have primarily focused on art practices in the South-Asian context. She was the 2019 Brooks International Research Fellow at Tate Modern in the curatorial and photography department and a resident at the Delfina Foundation. Veerangana is currently based in India. She has contributed papers and articles to several international art journals and publications. She has curated exhibitions, lectured on curating and art practices, and conducted workshops internationally at institutes and galleries such as the Siddhartha Art Foundation, Kathmandu; the Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh; the Asian Contemporary Art Conference, Taipei; Icastica, Arezzo; Academia di Belle Arte, Florence; Casa Masaccio, San Giovanni Valdarno; NGMA, Mumbai and Bengaluru; Space Studio, Baroda; Tarq, Mumbai; Exhibit 320, Delhi; Goldsmiths, University of London; and Tate Modern, London among others. She has also served as the Programme Director at Space Studio, Baroda, the curator of the 2017 Kathmandu Triennale symposium and the Photo Kathmandu Residency 2018, and is on the advisory board of the 2021 Kathmandu Triennale.