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
Contextualised during the upcoming retrospective of Tyeb Mehta at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, this panel will delve into the preoccupations and articulations of the artist and his legacy. It will particularly emphasise his lifelong relationship with humanity.
SPEAKERS
ROOBINA KARODE
Artistic Director and Chief Curator of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.
Roobina Karode is currently the Artistic Director & Chief Curator at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi, India. She has headed the museum since it opened its doors in 2010. With postgraduate specializations in Art History and Education, Karode has been a significant presence in the art world as an educator, writer, and curator. She is a recipient of the Fulbright Fellowship and the Ford Teaching Fellowship. She curated the Indian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), which was lauded as one of the top five must-see pavilions. Karode’s extensive curatorial work – in India and internationally, consistently prioritizes underrepresented intergenerational artists who are crucial to the discourse of modern and contemporary Indian art. At KNMA, Roobina has been instrumental in re-contextualizing exhibition practices and art historical contextualisation of South Asian art and artists, deliberately moving away from a Western-centric gaze and established frameworks. Karode is focused on collaborations and partnering with other significant institutions to consolidate the global presence and relevance of contemporary Indian and South Asian art, exploring new ideas about exhibition making, public programming and working to make art accessible to diverse audiences.
YUSUF MEHTA
Trustee, Tyeb Mehta Foundation
Yusuf Mehta trained at the National School of Drama and the Film and Television Institute of India and received the 1988 National Award for Best Educational Film for Multimedia in Distance Education. His career spans theatre, film, and television, including Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho, Utsav, and Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi. As Head of the School of Animation and Visual Effects at Whistling Woods International from 2015-2023, he expanded its scope to include 2D and 3D Animation, Comic Design, Game Design, Visual Effects and Virtual Reality, championing Indian aesthetics and cultural heritage to shape a distinctive “Indian sensibility” in animation and interactive media.
DR. JYOTINDRA JAIN
Art historian and Museum Theorist
Dr. Jyotindra Jain is a distinguished Indian art historian, curator and museum theorist, internationally recognized for his pioneering work in folk, tribal, and popular visual culture. As former Director of the National Crafts Museum, New Delhi, he developed a groundbreaking post-colonial museum model celebrating living Indian traditions through artist residencies and innovative programming. A scholar of profound influence, Dr. Jain served as Professor at JNU’s School of Arts & Aesthetics and Member Secretary at IGNCA (New Delhi), authoring seminal works on Indian folk and ritual art, Member of the International Advisory of Berlin’s new multi-arts complex, the Humboldt Forum, and notably served as an Editor for Marg Publications (Mumbai), a leading art magazine, among other prestigious roles. He has also been honored with the Prince Claus Award (1998) and Germany’s Cross of the Order of Merit (2018) and his curatorial vision has shaped major international exhibitions.
MODERATOR
JESAL THACKER
Curator & Writer
Jesal Thacker is a curator and writer, primarily interested in recontextualizing Indian modernism and pedagogy. In 2005, she founded Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation, a not for profit organization that specialized in research and publications, notable amongst them being V S Gaitonde’s Sonata of Solitude; Prabhakar Barwe’s Blank Canvas, Prabhakar Kolte’s Writings on Art, and Vasant Wankhede to name a few. Independently she has curated several exhibitions, a major retrospective of Prabhakar Barwe at NGMA, Rhizome: Tracing Ecocultural Identities at the CSMVS, Haku Shah: Ya Ghat Bheetar at Subcontinent. Jesal has authored and edited texts on masters like Shanti Dave, Ganesh Haloi and Jogen Chowdhury. Currently she serves as the Project Director at the Tyeb Mehta Foundation, spearheading the centenary projects and editing the publications on the master Tyeb Mehta.
