Four young artists, British-Iranian artist Laila Tara H, Delhi-based artist and filmmaker Khandakar Ohida, Kathmandu-based artist and activist Lavkant Chaudhary and artist and filmmaker Rahee Punyashloka, share lessons and learnings from their first 10 years in art, and journey through key moments that have helped lay the foundation of their career. The conversation will be moderated by writer and podcaster, Kamayani Sharma.
Rahee Punyashlokla: Rahee Punyashloka is a writer, artist, and filmmaker based out of Bhubaneswar and New Delhi. He creates anti-caste art and discourse under the moniker ‘artedkar’. His works have had exhibitions including in ARKIPEL, Athens Video Art Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Tribeca Film Festival, Ishara Art Foundation Dubai, The Method Gallery Mumbai, MAP Bangalore, among others
Laila Tara H: Anglo-born Iranian, Laila Tara H. deconstructs the aesthetic framework of the Indo-Persian miniature tradition, hybridising it to form her own visual language. Expanding the materiality of paper and disentangling compositions. Her works assess the human condition, often in relation to lived experience, socio/political gender dynamics, and social structures in domestic spaces.
Khandakar Ohida: Khandakar Ohida is a Visual Artist and Filmmaker based in New Delhi. Her film “Dream Your Museum” has been showcased as a part of the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Germany, 2022, 59th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia (as part of the 4th module of the Ukraine pavilion public program), Venice, 2022, Emami Art Experimental Film Festival, 2022, Kolkata.
Lavkant Chaudhary: Lavkant Chaudhary is an artist from the Indigenous Tharu peoples of the Tarai, and his art directly addresses issues related to his community and their struggle for rights and recognition within the history of the Nepali nation-state. By embedding archival matter and Indigenous vocabularies in his art, he aims to unravel the multiple injustices of indentured servitude, extrajudicial killings, environmental degradation, and political disenfranchisement Tharu peoples have faced. Paramount to this practice are narratives of resistance and resilience that disrupt and challenge these longitudinal cycles of suffering. He is also a member of ArTree Nepal, an art collective formed in 2013 in Kathmandu by five artists from diverse Indigenous backgrounds.
Kamayani Sharma: Kamayani Sharma is a writer, researcher and podcaster. Sharma is part of the Editorial & Content Strategy department at the Sharjah Art Foundation and runs South Asia’s first independent visual culture podcast called Artalaap. She is a Kalpalata Fellow in Visual Culture Writing 2022 for Scroll.in and was a finalist at the International Awards for Art Criticism 2020.
Titled ‘Align & Disrupt’, the talks programme curated by independent curator and educator Shaleen Wadhwana, and supported by Shiv Nadar – Institution Of Eminence, aims to align voices of leading artists and arts professionals on critical issues in the arts ecosystem, and collectively disrupt the status quo to shape a more aware and inclusive art world of the future. For the first time, the key learnings and insights from these talks will be documented in an action-plan which will be widely circulated and made accessible to the public on the India Art Fair website. All talks will be conducted in Indian Sign Language.
