The Shadow Traper's Almanac

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 with Okwui Enwezor and Hyunjin Kim (2008) and was curator of India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2011).

Tanmoy Samanta: (b. 1973 West Bengal) received a BFA and MFA in Painting from Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan in 1996. He is a recipient of a Pollock Krasner Foundation Award (New York) (2013), a National Scholarship from the Government of India (1995-1997), and a residency at the Kanoria Centre for Arts in Ahmedabad (1998). Samanta, who lives and works in New Delhi, was brought up in an environment rich in literary and artistic experience. His parents were participants in the Bengali ‘little magazine’ movement; he grew up to savour the Tagorean ethos of Santiniketan, developed his practice there and later in the collegial setting of the Kanoria Arts Centre, Ahmedabad. He has also taught at Rajghat, the Krishnamurti Foundation’s school in Varanasi; he found its approach congenial to his own, with its emphasis on a wide receptivity towards the world, the flowering of creativity without the oppression of canon or dogma, and a generosity of spirit when dealing with the unpredictable variety of cultural manifestations.