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
How do we safeguard freedom of expression? In that, how and what are the challenges faced whilst speaking truth to power? Here we invite artists who are truth-seekers to tell us about their journey on this path of rising to challenge through their arts practice. These panelists tell us how they responded to movements around them—what were they part of, how did they respond to societal crises, and how all this has shaped the way in which art movements which they were part and witnessed, were understood in art history, present and future.
SPEAKERS
Chandraguptha Thenuwara
Artist, Founder of Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts (VAFA)
Chandraguptha Thenuwara (b. 1960, Galle) is a Sri Lankan artist whose interdisciplinary practice confronts politics of memory and violence, particularly the erasure of Sri Lanka’s civil war history beneath state-sanctioned beautification. Founder of Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts (VAFA) —an alternative art educational organisation supporting the experimental, socially critical art that emerged in Sri Lanka’s 1990s—Thenuwara has shaped the nation’s contemporary art landscape. Using leitmotifs like barrels, barricades, and barbed wire, his sculptures, paintings, and public interventions directly engage sociopolitical developments. Recent exhibitions include Art Dubai Modern (2024), Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (2023), Sharjah Art Foundation (2022), and Frieze London (2022). His work is in institutional collections, including LACMA and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. He lives in Ethulkotte and works in Athurugiriya, Sri Lanka.
Chandraguptha Thenuwara’s participation is supported by the Saskia Fernando Gallery.
Katayoun Karami
Contemporary Artist
Katayoun Karami (b. 1967, Tehran) is a contemporary artist whose practice explores memory, gender, identity, and the social conditions shaping collective and personal experience. Trained in architecture at Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, Karami works across photography, installation, and mixed media to interrogate how representation—particularly of women—intersects with history, politics, and communal narratives. Since the 1990s, she has exhibited widely in Iran and internationally, with notable presentations including Amnesia and Hypermnesia, Tehran (2020), Speaking from the Heart, Framer Framed, Amsterdam (2013), and Crescendo, Vida Heydari Contemporary, Pune (2025). She was awarded first prize at the Ibda’a Awards in Dubai (2002). Her work continues to be recognized for its experimental, socially engaged character. Karami lives and works in Tehran, Iran.
Katayoun Karami’s participation is supported by the Vida Heydari Contemporary.
ASHMINA RANJIT
Visual Artist
Director at LASANAA, Nepal.
Ashmina Ranjit is Nepal’s pioneering artivist, blending conceptual art with feminist activism from the Global South. Her process-driven works confront caste, gender, sexuality, stereotypes, and human rights, redefining contemporary Nepali art. Visiting faculty at Kathmandu University’s Center for the Arts and, a key member of Just Futures Pahal, she shapes curricula on visual narratives of social justice. During Nepal’s civil war (1996–2006) and the transition to a democratic republic, her bold public interventions united soldiers, Maoists, politicians, and citizens against violence while exposing caste and gender injustices. Founder of Sutra Art Center, Gallery Nine, LASANAA, and NexUs Culture Center, she fosters global artistic collaboration. A two-time Fulbright Scholar and Australia Awardee with an MFA from Columbia University, she was named by The Kathmandu Post in 2018 among Nepal’s 25 modern shapers.
WAHEEDA BALOCH
Visual Artist and Art Historian
KADIST Advisor
Waheeda Baloch is a curator, educator, and performance artist shaping Pakistan’s contemporary art landscape. Founder-curator of ArtFest Karachi at the non-profit Sambara Art Gallery, she creates platforms for artistic dialogue and experimentation across communities. In 2024, she became the first woman to curate the Karachi Biennale’s fourth edition, presenting Rizq | Risk, exploring food security, climate justice, and sustainability through interdisciplinary frameworks. Her curatorial approach deliberately weaves global and local perspectives, connecting artists from the Global South to foster meaningful exchange about shared challenges. Holding an MFA from Sindh University and a Master’s in Curation from Stockholm University, she serves as KADIST Advisor and Professor at Sindh University’s Institute of Art and Design.
TAYEBA BEGUM LIPI
Visual Artist
Co-Founder and Trustee, Britto Arts Trust, Bangladesh
Born in Gaibandha, Bangladesh, Tayeba Begum Lipi earned her MFA at the Institute of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka. Tayeba is the Co-Founder and Trustee of Britto Arts Trust, Bangladesh. Her major exhibitions include ‘No Country’ by Guggenheim (NYC); ‘Being and Belonging’ in 2023-24 at Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; and Sculpture Contemporaine at Fondation Villa Datris, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, France. As part of Britto Arts Trust, Tayeba exhibited at the ‘documenta fifteen’ in Kassel and the Bangladesh Pavilion at the 54 Venice Biennale 2011, among others. Tayeba’s public acquisitions include Solomon R. Guggenheim NYC, Kunsthaus Zurich, Royal Ontario Museum, and Tate Modern, U.K, among others.
Kulpreet Singh
Artist, JSW – The Times of India Earth Care Award Winner 2025.
Kulpreet Singh (b. 1985, Sangrur, Punjab) is a Patiala-based artist whose process-oriented practice spans performance, film, sculpture, and installation. His ongoing Indelible Black Marks series reflects on permanent scars inscribed onto ecosystems, extending from land and environmental art histories with focus on farming post-Green Revolution. Beginning during the 2020-2021 farmers’ movement, his work evolved into examining wounds land bears from human impact. A climate activist and committed farmer, Singh uses stubble ash, pesticides, and reclaimed materials in installations that articulate depletion and resilience. In 2025, Singh received the JSW / Times of India Earth Care honour, where his work was presented in acknowledgment of his sustained engagement with ecological concerns and land-based practices. He is also exhibiting at Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025.
PRABHAKAR PACHPUTE
Visual Artist
Born in 1986 in eastern Maharashtra, Pachpute works across a wide range of mediums, including drawing, painting, sculpture, stop-motion animation, and site-specific assemblage. He often constructs immersive, theatrical environments that use surrealist tropes to build complex characters – both within and outside their landscapes. Moving between the local and the global, Pachpute brings an investigative, socio-cultural, ethical, and empathetic lens to his practice, asking urgent questions about what it means to be human amid the unfolding crises of our time. Recent exhibitions include Folkestone Triennial (2025), Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (2025), and the 59th Venice Biennale (2022). His work has been shown at Tate St. Ives, Artes Mundi 9, and major biennales worldwide.
MODERATOR
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
Artist
Shuddhabrata Sengupta is an artist and curator with the Raqs Media Collective.
