Supported by JSW and curated by independent researcher and curator, Shaleen Wadhwana, the 2026 Talks Programme– Rising to Challenge, brings together artists, curators, thinkers, and cultural leaders to address the overarching question: What Makes Art Happen? Each panel responds to this question with a “challenge”— from long-standing issues of access, accountability and social difference, to urgent contemporary concerns such as Artificial Intelligence and indigenizing cultural spaces.
All talks are conducted in English and Indian Sign Language (ISL), with some talks in Hindi, Punjabi, Odia, and Saura* live translated for the audience.
*Saura (also known as Soura or Sora) is recognised as one of the oldest Indigenous languages of the Indian subcontinent
THEMATIC PREMISE
We are receiving record high news of Global North galleries finding different models of showcasing art – be it through mobile galleries on wheels, or “non-gallery” galleries removing the traditional working formats. In contrast, in the Global Majority regions, commercial arts spaces, from galleries to commercial fairs, are opening more and more spaces. In this multi-hat nurturing role, the long term sustaining relationship of artists with galleries is that of intergenerational friendships that shape the gallery and the artists’ career over years. The biggest challenge in an arts ecosystem like ours – that has many artists but relatively fewer spaces to showcase art – is of fewer galleries but many more art-makers. In this challenge, you would address how young gallerists-to-be and emerging artists aspiring for gallery representation navigate the art world – and in doing so – what role does this professional friendship play in the same?
SPEAKERS
Prateek Raja
Co-Founder and Director, Experimenter
Prateek Raja is a Founding Member of the International Gallery Alliance (IGA), and also a Selection Committee member of Art Basel, Basel. His gallery Experimenter – one of India’s leading art galleries, represents 35 important Indian and international artists. Originally established as a single space in Kolkata in 2009, Prateek along with his wife, partner, Priyanka and their team run 3 galleries, an artist residency, a learning program foundation and a publishing wing between Kolkata and Mumbai. The Rajas created one of the most critical platforms for curatorial practice – the Experimenter Curators’ Hub (2011) that has brought over 120 foremost thought leaders and curators from the global art world to Kolkata. The Rajas also envisioned the Generator Cooperative Art Production Fund (2020), distributing 95 bursaries to artists since its inception.
BHASHA CHAKRABARTI
Artist
Bhasha Chakrabarti engages art-making as a mode of discourse, generating dialogues between subaltern tropes and feminine forms of labour from the global South and agendas of resistance movements of marginalised communities in the global North. Her interdisciplinary practice spans quilting, painting, film, and installation, exploring textiles’ politics and poetics—how fabrics travel, are bartered, loved, gendered, classed, and lived in. She was awarded the 2023 South Asia Artist Prize (UC Berkeley) and has exhibited at Dhaka Art Summit, Jeffrey Deitch and M+B, among others. Previously she has been an artist in residence at Civitella Ranieri, Italy (2025), Ekard Residency, Netherlands (2024) and Hampi Art Labs (2024). Most recently, her work is being exhibited at Kochi Biennale, and has guest-curated an exhibition at the RISD Museum, Providence (on view until June 28th, 2026). Chakrabarti is currently a fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Humboldt University in Berlin.
Sunitha Kumar Emmart
Full time Director GALLERYSKE
Founded in 2003 by Sunitha Kumar Emmart, GALLERYSKE is dedicated to presenting art grounded in the contemporary Indian experience. Over the last two decades, the gallery has worked closely with a small group of artists from South Asia, representing a wide generational spectrum across career stages — as a means to cultivate a sustained and evolving artistic dialogue. In Delhi, GALLERYSKE shares a unique collegial space with PHOTOINK, while in Bangalore, the gallery maintains a secondary private viewing space. Both models will continue to evolve through 2026.
RAJYASHRI GOODY
Artist
Rajyashri Goody (b. 1990, Pune) is currently based in Goa. With a BA in Sociology from Fergusson College, Pune, and an MA in Visual Anthropology from the University of Manchester, UK, she completed a two year residency at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. Her research interests include food and water politics, religion, literacy and literature, mobility and place-making in the context of caste-based violence and Dalit resistance in India. She works with found objects, paper pulp, clay, text, photographs, printmaking, and performance. Goody’s work has been presented at the Bukhara Biennial (2025); Sao Paulo Bienal (2025); Sharjah Biennial (2025); Asia Now, Paris (2023); Galleryske, New Delhi (2022); Goethe Institut, Pune and Mumbai (2025, 2021); and Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa (2025, 2019).
MODERATOR
PRATHYUSH PARASURAMAN
Writer, Journalist, and Cultural Critic
Prathyush Parasuraman is a writer, journalist and a cultural critic who writes across publications, in both print and online for The Hollywood Reporter India, Film Companion, The Hindu, Caravan, Verve, Firstpost, and News9. He studied Economics and South Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to programming films, he also writes “Counter Culture,” a fortnightly column in Frontline magazine, on cinema, literature and the broader zeitgeist. His book, On Beauty: The Cinema of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, was published by Penguin Random House India in 2024.
