In the third session, we welcome a conversation focusing on perspectives on art making between artist Bhagwati Prasad and curator Premjish Achari.

Note on the Series

Where does contemporary begin and where does it end? New Practices, as the name suggests, explores the dynamic terrain of contemporary art, art-making and criticism through open public dialogue and articulation. With slow iterations, the series imagines itself as a river of processing thoughts and counter thoughts resonating with the times and its tribulations. Artists, curators, and critics from diverse areas come together to brew the chai / tea of their ideas and processes while they watch the river of conversation meander and flow around and beyond them. Hence, question and answer session with the listeners and viewers forms an integral part of each conversation.

Bhagwati Prasad works with composite drawings and performance. He has conducted extensive research with Sarai-CSDS on Delhi's popular culture, water wars, and media life from 2002 to 2012, during which period he published 'Tinker. Solder. Tap.' (co-authored, 2009) and 'The Water Cookbook' (2010). He is known for his large scale wall drawings, notably at Jaipur Kala Kendra (2018), and his 'Hashtag series' has proliferated on social media since 2017. He has performed at the 11th Shanghai Biennale (2017) and Serendipity Arts Festival (Goa, 2017). He has been part of many international residencies and was the recipient of IFA’s Artist Practice Grant (2015). Prasad's works include Begumpura Series in which he revisits the egalitarian imaginary of Saint Ravidas showed at MACBA, Barcelona, in (2018-19) and The Stutter of Food presented at Five Million Incidents at Goethe-Institut, Delhi, in 2020. An interview with him was recently published in the drawing journal Fukt (Berlin, 2019). His work is being currently shown in the Shrine Empire online exhibition, Speculations on a New World Order. (2020) and To Be Movementary Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2021).His recent work Dumm (Breath; Perseverance; Courage) with Khoj International (2022). Begumpura/ Topographies (Place without Sorrow) 5th edition of the Mardin Biennial (2022).

Premjish Achari teaches art history and theory at Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida. A Delhi-based writer and curator, he is the initiator of Future Collaborations, a curatorial platform supporting the development of theoretically and politically informed curation as an essential aspect of contemporary art practice. His curations include the exhibitions All Canaries Bear Watching, part of the Indo-UK collaboration GRID Heritage Project, SAA/JNU, Delhi (2022); A Time for Farewells (Haverford College, Pennsylvania and Prameya Art Foundation, New Delhi, 2019); Workers and Farmers: The Panorama of Resistance (Prelude) and A Preview to Desolation (Istituto Italiano di Cultura, New Delhi, 2017). Premjish was editorial supervisor of Lokame Tharavadu (‘The World Is One Family’, 2021), a major survey exhibition of contemporary art organised by the Kochi Biennale Foundation. He was the recipient of the Pro Helvetia Art Writers’ Award 2021. In 2018, his work in developing new curatorial paradigms was recognised through the Prameya Art Foundation’s Art Scribes Award including a residency at Château de La Napoule, France. He was co-curator of the Bhubaneswar Art Trail 2018; a Khoj Fellow for Curatorial Intensive South Asia (CISA) 2017; and received the Inlaks/TAKE on Art Travel Grant for Young Critics in 2016.

The series is curated by Neha Tickoo and Madhurima Chaudhuri