Content Aahana Miller, Aditya Dutta, Akshat Raghava, Ananya Tantia, Anuj Daga, Aparajita Jain, Mahajan, Ayushi Gupta, Cynthia Director, Dhvani Behl, Ishrat Sahgal, Malvika Vaswani, Mehr Chatterjee, Mekhala Bahl, Nishita Mehta, Raghvi Bhatia, Rahoul B Singh, Shonan Trehan, Soaib Grewal, Srishti Srivastava, Tanvi Maloo Mehta, Vikramaditya Sharma Editor Anuj Daga Design & Layout Soaib Grewal, Anuj Daga Cover Design Nishita Mehta, Rachana Devidayal Shah A RISD India Alumni Initiative New Delhi 2020
CONTENTS
2 Introduction 3
Curatorial Note
6
List of Participants
7
Artwork Profiles
21
Parts for Wholes: Panel Discussion
23
Programming & Schedule
25
Artist & Curator Biographies
31
Exhibition Map
32 Acknowledgements
1
INTRODUCTION The RISD India Alumni Club was founded in 2012, with a growing network of 70+ practising artists and designers across India. Building on the legacy of the Rhode Island School of Design, which has produced some of the most notable names in contemporary art, film, architecture and design, the club’s mission is to support its Indian alumni and through its events and programming, enriching the landscape of art and design in India. Through a variety of programming that includes talks, exhibitions and mentorship sessions the alumni hope to build a strong creative community, facilitate collaborations and enable social impact. In February 2017 the club organised the inaugural ‘RISD India Alumni Show’ in Mumbai to much critical acclaim. The opening night was inaugurated by Rosanne Somerson - President of RISD. The show featured art and design works of Indian alumni, including Durga Gawde, Anjali Modi, Ishrat Sahgal, Malvika Vaswani and Dhvani Behl amongst others. Building Ruins marks the second edition of the RISD India Alumni Show. It puts together a curated display of contemporary art and design by India alumni of the Rhode Island School of Design. The show serves as a platform for Indian alumni to share the richness and diversity of their practices with the larger art and design communities and the general public. It highlights the relationship between art and design and the common foundations of both disciplines. The show is organised by volunteers from the RISD India Alumni Club in collaboration with curator, Anuj Daga.
2
CURATORIAL NOTE
Building noun a usually roofed and walled structure built for permanent use synonyms: structure, edifice verb the art or business of assembling materials into a structure synonyms: erect, construct, set up, raise
Ruins noun the broken parts or left overs of something the remains of something destroyed verb reduce to a state of decay, gradually break into pieces the action of destroying, laying waste, or wrecking
3
Building Ruins In its constantly (d)evolving meanings, ‘Building Ruins’ aims to generate an archive of objects and ideas by RISD practitioners that demonstrates the inherently interrogative nature of artistic endeavours. Through this incomplete, fragmented archive, the curatorial ambition of the show is to present enquiries embedded within the practices of RISD alumni in India. It takes a closer look at their investment in the range of materials, techniques and processes that they constantly engage within their everyday. Building Ruins offers the possibility of exploring the play between the complete and the incomplete, permanent and impermanent, assembly and dismantling, fragments and wholes or even preservation and decay. The project inevitably demands a fragile tracing of a past into the present, yet maintaining its interpretive dimension for the future, invoked in its precautionary reading that too much building might lead to destruction.
Anuj Daga Curator
4
5
PARTICIPANTS Aahana Miller
Interior Architecture
2013
Aditya Dutta
Film/Animation/Video
2014
Akshat Raghava
Industrial Design
2009
Ananya Tantia Industrial Design 2011 Aparajita Jain Mahajan
Film/Animation/Video
2003
Ayushi Gupta Textiles 2017 Cynthia Director Textiles 1988 Dhvani Behl Printmaking 2012 Ishrat Sahgal
Interior Architecture
2011
Malvika Vaswani
Industrial Design
2011
Mehr Chatterjee Film/Animation/Video 2015 Mekhala Bahl Printmaking 2003 Nishita Mehta
Photo + Graphic Design
2009
Raghvi Bhatia Glass 2019 Rahoul B Singh Architecture 1997 Shonan Trehan Architecture 2005 Srishti Srivastava
Interior Architecture
2012
Tanvi Maloo Mehta
Sculpture
2011
Vikramaditya Sharma
Graphic Design
2014
6
Symphonious, Aahana Miller
7
ARTWORK PROFILES
AAHANA MILLER Symphonious Digital Print on paper 5’ × 3’ New skylines outline ghosts of older buildings within our neighbourhoods. Memories of an English building, now demolished, creep over a contemporary multi-storey home. Overlaid with images generated by a neural network AI software, the fragmented work scaffolds the new into the old, and builds into the ruin.
ADITYA DUTTA AND MEHR CHATTERJEE Still Life Mixed Media Animation 1920 x 1080 pixels (HD), 90 secs The hardest part about creating a “still life” - is to keep it still. As we struggle to capture stillness, objects continue to escape into their organic decay. We instead inch closer towards the threshold of ruin - where beyond the fear of extinction, we are greeted into the promise of surprise.
8
Meteor, Akshat Raghava
AKSHAT RAGHAVA Meteor Brass + Dichroic Glass + LED light 28” x 26” Meteor in the large scheme of the universe is an astronomical left over. The lamp composition alludes to the phenomenon of meteor shower in its splintered discs and falling brass longitudes – an aesthetic remainder of destruction and turbulence. The beam of light reflects on discs of dichroic glass and disperses into colours aplenty: a celestial spectacle in any room you place.
ANANYA TANTIA Discovery Spray painted MDF, print 36” x 36” (4 pcs which are 18” x 18” each) A group of symbols when spoken or written help humans connect with each other. This typographic experiment disrupts the structured mode of accessing language, yet spells out a word inviting the mind to bridge communication gaps and in turn build newer connections.
9
Tracing Memories, Aparajita Jain Mahajan
APARAJITA JAIN MAHAJAN Tracing Memories Katran and thread (left behind from “Haveli”), wire (unfinished work) Dimensions Vary Few years ago, Haveli, a pioneering textile and apparel store, shut down leaving me with numerous boris & potlis of katran, remnants of my mother’s legacy, awaiting to resume the journey that was cut short abruptly. Also lay in my studio, unfinished works of art that feared oblivion and yearned to be breathed back to life. In indexing personal and textile histories, Tracing Memories gives these forgotten pieces a renewed destiny: woven, stuffed, stitched and knotted together. It fulfils their longing to be part of a meandering trail to new destinations, a second chance for ruins to reincarnate.
10
AYUSHI GUPTA City Archives III Digitally printed and embroidered organza 40” x 80” x 24” This work is inspired by the architectural palimpsest of Mumbai. The screens archive the city through specific use of colour, materials and pattern that are experienced in its everyday eventually creating a metaphorical journey through space and time.
11
Borås Westbourne Bombay Garden Cynthia Director
CYNTHIA DIRECTOR Borås Westbourne Bombay Garden Knitted, Screen & Block Printed Textiles 50” x 85” Borås Westbourne Bombay Garden is a quilt that links past and present. The knitted swatches were made over 20 years ago while an exchange student in Sweden. Some of the prints were drawn from flowers in my garden in London and printed with natural indigo on vintage tea towels. The newer designs were drawn from plants in Bombay, then screen printed on old fabrics from my home. Learning from the Kantha tradition of sewing old fabrics into a new cloth, the quilt stitches a garden of fragmented memories.
12
DHVANI BEHL Shiva’s Eye Graphite on Arches aquarella 300 gsm hot press paper 4.5’ x 4.5’ The ruin opens up the rigidity of a building into a fluid landscape. The work demonstrates the process of drawing without interference or predetermination. In this fluid mental space, the artist translates her universe that unhesitatingly folds within itself flaws while aiming for perfection.
ISHRAT SAHGAL Evoke Carpet Hand Knotted Sari Silk 8’ x 10’
The endless hues of the Evoke carpet have been coloured and erased, letting the technique of doing so become the artist in a way, to decide which bits remain and which disappear. This creates a non- pattern pattern, which is different each time and not controlled, free to just be. This technique of erasure - used by masters such as Seurat - brings up or evokes in a viewer a thought, feeling, or a memory of things past.
13
New York, Malvika Vaswani
MALVIKA VASWANI New York Stainless steel, Brass, Micron Plated Brass 9.5” x 9.5” x 1.25” 6” x 6” x 1.5 “ 4” x 4” x 2” 3.5” x 3.5” x 1.25” New York is an exploratory tableware collection inspired by the Manhattan grid and the angular accent of its Broadway avenue. The forms in metal highlight what remains of the city with the designer, that she works towards rebuilding “block by block” her time spent the city.
14
Y, Mekhala Bahl
15
MEKHALA BAHL Trees, 2015 Etching, collage, ink, lead, on paper 12” x 14” Residue, 2015 Etching, collage, watercolour, lead on board 18” x 25” Y, 2016 Etching, collage, ink, lead, on paper 21” x 26” Houseboat, 2016 Etching, collage, ink, lead, on paper 9” x 14”
NISHITA MEHTA I dreamt of Sophie Scholl Paper, Metal / Wood, Coir Rope 2’ x 3’ Echoes of youth, a testament, our conscience; voices, raised in dissent, raised in hope. Brave words imagining a future that could be, remembering a past that was.
16
Skin (Study in Orange), Raghvi Bhatia
RAGHVI BHATIA Skin (Study in Orange) Glass, Silver, Acrylic 20� x 24� In developing a craft that uses individual glass seed beads into a continuous whole, this work reinvokes the historically unbounded Eurasian landscapes over which the material travelled and got perfected into its present form. Skin (Study in Orange) employs a craft in which each bead acts as a unit of currency, time and labor.
17
RAHOUL B SINGH Gyara saw Digital Print on Canvas, burnt clay bricks Team: Saleha Sapra, Riddhi Batra, Mili Jain Gyara saw, (1100), the general pincode for Delhi, maps the schisms in formal planning devices and identifies sixteen urban thresholds that demonstrate an “indigenous� urbanism. Through the adoption of materials, techniques and processes found within these geographies, the installation marks simultaneous acts of erasure and inscription of public space, citizenry and space of democracy, that result into a conflicted, yet elastic urban common which comes to accommodate the urban excess.
Gyarasaw, Rahoul B Singh
18
SHONAN PURIE TREHAN Blueprints of an Outside Brick, Stone Inlay 5’ x 6’ An imagined lost conversation between masons on a scaffolding, this work interrogates the ontology of the unfinished. It specifically looks at the act of ‘walling in and walling out’, voicing the labourer, whose hands build the same wall that will eventually keep him on the outside.
SRISHTI SRIVASTAVA Folies & Free Will Medium density fibre board, timber, resin, vellum paper Radius 10’, height 8’ approximately Acknowledgement: Alexis X A Roberts Follies + Free Will interrogates the implication of design on the human condition. Paper M, a design journal, manifests itself as a pavilion — a remnant where design stories may be fastened, observed, touched, rearranged, removed and critiqued.
Passing, Bikaner, Vikramaditya Sharma
19
TANVI MALOO MEHTA Phases Faces Spaces Wood and Metal 3.8’ x 4.8’ 11:11 Print on paper 24” x 20” (with frame) The works here are a reminder of time and its coexistence: past, present and future. The shifted wrenches once moving are now still resembling hands of a clock, reverberating the continuity of time the stillness of its nature and the infinite existence that it has. Time is a bowl of water with its contents always present and always accessible, not a flowing tap where once expelled its lost forever. The moment is now. The moment was always now. The moment will always be now.
VIKRAMADITYA SHARMA Passing, Bikaner Aurora Dotcom Multimedia 4 boxes of 1’ x 1.5’ What are the roles of gender in Indian society? This narrative of Aurora Dotcom explores the complex gendered-responsibilities of men. Passing shows the loss of the patriarch and the looming burden of the Indian last rites ceremony (in which the oldest son performs the cremation). Passing is the first part of a two-part series.
20
21
PANEL DISCUSSION
PARTS FOR WHOLES potentials and failures of design a panel discussion between RISD alumni Soaib Grewal (designer, entrepreneur, investor), Rahoul Singh (architect) and Richa Kejriwal (graphic designer) moderated by Anuj Daga (curator). This panel aims to contemplate upon how artists and designers find their role in the society at large, and what forces of the environment shape up their aesthetic practice. How have RISD values been reoriented, reworked, and reimagined to intervene into the complexities of social, political and cultural environment of South Asia? In understanding these, the discussion aims to situate design as an expanded collaborative practice that allow the designer to one’s inherent limitations. The panel, in turn, hopes to offer frameworks to rethink art and design as an embedded, as opposed to an individualistic practice. Saturday, 1st February, 2020 @ 4:30 pm THE COMMON ROOM 287, 288 Dhanmill Compound, SSN Marg, 100 Feet Rd, Chhatarpur, Delhi 110074. Free and open to public.
22
23
PROGRAMMING
DATE
TIME
31 Jan 2020
\ 12 pm to 10 pm \ Opening
\ 6 pm to 10 pm \ Alumni Reception
1 Feb 2020
\ 10 am – 10 pm \ Exhibition hours
\ 4:30 pm – 6 pm \ Parts for Wholes: A Panel Discussion
PROGRAM
on Potentials & Failures of Design
with RISD Alumni
@ The Common Room
\ 6 pm – 10 pm \ IAF Chhatarpur Night
2 Feb 2020
\ 10 am – 9 pm \ Exhibition
Exhibition Venue AGENC COLAB, The Dhan Mill, 60 Feet Rd, Chhatarpur Hills, Pocket D, Dr Ambedkar Colony, Chhatarpur, New Delhi, Delhi 110074 Talk Venue THE COMMON ROOM 287, 288 Dhanmill Compound, SSN Marg, 100 Feet Rd, Chhatarpur, Delhi 110074.
A RISD Alumni Initiative
24
BIOGRAPHIES AAHANA MILLER recently completed her Master of Architecture at The University of Pennsylvania with a Minor in Historic Preservation. This complemented her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Architecture from The Rhode Island School of Design, which focused on adaptive re-use. At PennDesign she was the Director for Penn Student Design, liaising with graphic designers to produce creative materials for various marketing projects. She was also the Chair of Penn Design’s Women in Architecture group, an organization that aims to increase the incidence and visibility of women in the architectural profession. She strives to incorporate a unique amalgam of her Indian roots as well as her contemporary education into her design style, aiming to synergize an eastern cultural ethos with modern living. Currently, she works as an Architect with her father Alfaz Miller at ABM Architects in Mumbai, designing a wide range of commercial, residential, retail and institutional projects. ADITYA DUTTA is an illustrator and designer. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in illustration. He is one part of Improper, a design and animation studio based in India. His work has been featured by cultural highlights such as Red Bull Music and Rolling Stone India, as well as organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts (USA) and the Kyoorius Design Awards. He remains curious about how his cat seems to look and behave more and more like him with every passing day. AKSHAT RAGHAVA is an award-Winning designer based in New Delhi. Over the years, he has not only completed more than 300 projects but has also contributed to design fraternity by mentoring young designers in the space. Also, he has been actively teaching students as a guest faculty for more than a decade now. He completed his graduation from Rhode Island School of Design, USA and specialised in product, lighting, packaging, furniture and jewellery design. In 2010, Akshat co-founded Beryl India, which specialises in designs services, working with start-ups to established brands in India and abroad. Akshat has been designing lights for different manufacturers and now plans to build a high-end handcrafted lighting brand in India in 2020. In his design process, Akshat relies majorly on using traditional design methods such as 25
sketching, model making, prototyping and modelling in computer programs, as well as manufacturing technologies and experimenting with different materials. APARAJITA JAIN MAHAJAN spent her growing years in J.Krishnamoorty’s Rishi Valley School, where she discovered her deep connection to painting and nature. She knew her destination was an art college and graduated from RISD in 2003. She is currently working on a new body of artwork using innovative katran & thread from her late mother’s pioneering textile-based apparel store “Haveli”, along with her paper experiments, wire, paint & pen. The idea of “conversations” impacting a “journey” in a macro or micro manner is the backbone of the thought process in the upcoming works. The interactions of energy in and around us has always been a prevalent concept in her work. ANANYA TANTIA is a multidisciplinary designer with a combined background in Industrial Design (RISD, 2011) and Graphic Design (Parsons, 2016). Having lived in five cities across the world, she now runs a design studio called 9133 in her hometown – Kolkata, India. This studio is an amalgamation of her love for the third dimension with her passion for paper and print. Other than being a design enthusiast and a branding aficionado, she is also an occasional painter, a travel junkie and a food fanatic. AYUSHI GUPTA graduated with a BFA in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2017. Blending the experiences of different cultures, her work reflects ideas of a new, global modernism. Through an array of techniques ranging from handmade to technological, she strives to bring a uniqueness to all her creative endeavours that range from singular artworks to prototypes of use out in the world. Her design philosophy entails a constant balancing of conceptuality and functionality as well as a consciousness towards social and environmental sustainability. These principles are deeply inculcated in her creative, personal expression. CYNTHIA DIRECTOR is a product designer specializing in textiles for both fashion and home. After graduating from RISD she worked in the fashion industry in New York for 11 years after which she relocated to Bombay in 2010. While in Bombay she worked in textile design for the Indian and International market. She took a transformative sabbatical traveling throughout India and other parts of Asia for a year and then decided to get a MA in sustainable textiles from University of the Arts London, Chelsea College of Art. She is interested in preserving crafts and creating work that has less impact on the environment. Presently she is based in Bombay, and works for various clients in India and abroad developing new products for the home market. 26
DHVANI BEHL founded her printing studio, Flora for Fauna, in 2013 in Delhi, with the aim of creating wearable works of art. Over the years, Behl’s practice has diverged to include textile artworks and interior fabrics. She experiments with a combination of traditional printmaking techniques, textiles and hand embroidery. Behl’s work is found in numerous, renowned private collections. Her recent clients include Goldman Sachs and RAAS hotels. Combining a love for sustainable design, traditional Indian craft, and tastefully done interior spaces, ISHRAT SAHGAL launched her boutique design house, Muscat Co.in 2013. Backed with a degree in Interior Architecture and a minor in Art History from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), she has previously lived in New York City where she worked closely with renowned interior designer Susan Gutfreud, for clientele including art collectors, royal families and big retail giants. Recently, she was awarded the honor of being featured in the Forbes Asia 30 under 30 list, in the field of industry, Manufacturing and Energy. MALVIKA VASWANI is an award-winning experimental brand based in the heart of Mumbai, India. Working with unconventional materials, the brand aspires to re-contextualise traditional craft techniques to make unique handmade products. Malvika wanted to come home to India after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design to continue her thesis on exploring the skilled handcrafting traditions slowly disappearing all over the subcontinent. On her journeys from one artisan’s karkhana (studio) to the next, she discovered that the evolution of form had plateaued leading to a stagnation of creative innovation. This inspired her to experiment technology as a complement to the traditional techniques in the hope that it would be a catalyst for the artisans she collaborates with towards new inspirations. Through balancing a longstanding Indian tradition of ‘hasth-kala’ with an inquisitive and experimental instinct Malvika Vaswani seeks to re-imagine contemporary design. Inspired deeply by architecture and design movements such as the Bauhaus and Art deco, every piece is hand-made locally using ethical manufacturing practices along with unconventional materials and techniques. MEHR CHATTERJEE is a designer, animator and illustrator who graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) with a BFA in Film/Animation/ Video. She is the co-founder of Improper, a design & animation studio based in India. Her work has been featured in various film festivals including the Ottawa International Animation Festival and Melbourne International Animation Festival. In 2019, she was invited to be a part of Design X Design’s 20 under 35 showcase. Always inquisitive, Mehr loves to learn about new stuff and enjoys challenges. She also collects boxes within boxes and likes it when they fit.
27
MEKHALA BAHL trained at the College of Art, Delhi and then at Rhode Island School of Design until she graduated in 2003. Her practice involves primarily printmaking and painting, using material as diverse as silk, wood, plastic, paper. She has worked, and exhibited in countries and cultures as diverse as Italy, France, Japan and America. Mekhala Bahl has participated in multiple workshops and residencies, serving as Artist in Residence at the International School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture, Montecastello, Umbria Italy and as also part of the Indo-French Residency Programme. In 2003, Mekhala Bahl was awarded Student of the Year in Printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, USA. She was also the recipient of the G.W. Hodge Ritchie Award for Excellence in Printmaking, USA, in 2002. NISHITA MEHTA attended RISD from 2003 to 2009. She studied photography, graphic design and art history. Her projects include working with various print and digital media, typography, visual research and exploring new approaches to material and form. She currently lives and works in Bombay. RAGHVI BHATIA is an artist who considers the artistic experience as analogous to rituals - of searching for the sacred, of visiting religious institutions, and of questioning existence. Bhatia received a BFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design where she developed her artistic practice as a religious sect. Her sect follows the philosophy of the ‘Spectrum of BlueOrange’ which serves to replace the binary system of black vs. white. Her ascetic and aesthetic philosophy explores similarities between glass, skin and water – materials that are at once enduring and fragile. RAHOUL B SINGH got his degrees in both architecture and in the fine arts at the Rhode Island School of Design, USA and established a design studio in New Delhi in 1998. Since then he has built extensively in India and the Middle East. He is currently a member of the Visiting Faculty in the Department of Architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi and serves as a Senior Consultant to the Delhi Urban Arts Council (DUAC). He is a regular contributor to journals both nationally and internationally in architecture, and is the author of the book, “Gardens of Delight” and was the co-curator of the architectural exhibition, “Raj Rewal: Memory, Metaphor and Meaning in his Constructed Landscape” at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. SHONAN PURIE TREHAN is the founder and a principal architect at Language. Architecture.Body (LAB). After completing her Bachelor of Architecture, from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in USA, she worked at Eisenmen Architects in New York City. She completed her Masters in Architecture 28
from the Bartlett School of Built Environment, London, UK, with a focus in Advanced Architectural Design. In 2010, Shonan established LAB in Bombay as a design studio that focuses on construction of relationships between narrative, environment and habitation. She has been working with great momentum over the last 6 years. The team of 16 architects have built over 57 residential, commercial, healthcare and hospitality projects across India, USA and Africa. The work ranges from the planning of a 1600 bed hospital, Medanta ‘TheMedicity’ to the interiors of Fashion Brands,Nicobar Studio and Anita Dongre’s ‘Grassroot & Global Desi’. LAB’s work has been widely published and awarded a spot on the AD50 list of 2015. She has also presented at IDF, DesignxDesign 30under35, Studio X and close encounters. SRISHTI SRIVASTAVA is a painter turned architect. She studied Art History & Fine Arts, Adaptive Re-use and Architecture at Stella Maris, RISD, SCAD respectively. She started a creative journal “Paper M” (Wo/Man, Maker, Machine, Monster) that was launched at Harvard GSD (2017). Influenced by the history of visual arts & culture, her built work integrates material logic with personal stories, values and experience. Her research focuses on the visceral response and psychological impact of matter on well-being. Some of her prominent projects are the Adani House (art installations) & UAE Embassy (landscape architecture). TANVI MALOO MEHTA is an artist with a BFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design with experience in painting and furniture design. She has thrived on finding lost and forgotten worlds in pursuit of love for the handmade and wonders that were once cherished and later swept away with time. The symmetry and painstaking perfection with which such contained time capsules had been created remained relevant even today. A tool box of various materials and skill sets have always helped her communicate in changing forms. VIKRAMADITYA SHARMA is a multimedia artist and graphic designer. His work explores the complexities of identity in the virtual world. While suffering from anxiety and depression, Vikramaditya came across machine learning technology that could accurately detect depression by parsing through an individual’s photos. Images without human subjects and dark or blue tones were indicators of poor mental health. Aurora Dotcom began as a selfempowerment ritual. He began planting virtual friends into his empty photos as a way of creating positive memories and regaining control of his mental narrative. Vikramaditya graduated from RISD with a BFA in Graphic Design. He is currently the founder of the strategic design studio, Now Form.
29
PANEL SPEAKERS SOAIB GREWAL is a Partner at TVentures, a venture capital fund backed by Times Internet where he looks after early-stage investments and works closely with the portfolio on product and growth. He is also a part of the Corp Dev and Strategy team of Times Internet, helping the group with new projects and inorganic growth. As a designer, entrepreneur and technology investor, he has worked closely with a diverse set of startups across Asia and the US. Before TVentures, he was a Venture Partner at 500 Startups a global venture capital fund; the founder of BOLD Ventures- India’s first design-led investment firm and WaterWalla an award-winning social impact startup. He has studied at Stanford, Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design. RICHA KEJRIWAL is a Graphic Designer and photographer interested in the intersection of Art and Design. She is interested in exploring those interstices that connect image and text. She combines analogue techniques of printmaking and photography with video and digital design. She has previously worked has product designer and photographer in New York and Calcutta and now works as a graphic designer with St+art India Foundation – a non-profit based in New Delhi that works on art projects in public spaces. She is originally from Calcutta, and a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. CURATOR ‘S PROFILE ANUJ DAGA is an architect, writer and curator based in Mumbai. Trained as an architect, he went on to pursue his interests in History & Theory of Architecture through the interdisciplinary Master of Environmental Design program at Yale School of Architecture (2014). His practice is informed by diverse engagements in fields of design, research and academia that have resulted into numerous roles as writer, critic, commentator, theorist or interlocutor in the cultural field. Anuj has worked with several cultural institutions as well as research & artist organizations including Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai, Collective Research Initiatives Trust (CRIT) - Mumbai, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) - New York and Critical Art & Media Practices (CAMP) - Mumbai in different capacities. He has been the Curatorial Assistant for the visual arts project “Young Subcontinent” since first organized by Serendipity Arts Foundation in Goa in 2016 until 2018 as well as ‘When is Space? Conversations in Contemporary Architecture’ commissioned by the Jawahar Kala Kendra (2018). He has a keen interest in studying the visual culture in architecture and the way different visual media tie into contemporary architectural expression. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor at the School of Environment & Architecture, Mumbai.
30
EXHIBITION LAYOUT
KEY 01 Aparajita Jain Mahajan 02 Dhvani Behl 03 Nishita Mehta 04 Rahoul B Singh 05 Ishrat Sehgal 06 Aditya Dutta and Mehr Chatterjee 07 Tanvi Malloo Mehta 08 Akshat Raghava 09 Shonan Trehan 10 Ananya Tantia 11 Mekhala Bahl 12 Ayushi Singh 13 Malvika Vaswani 14 Aahana Miller 15 Raghvi Bhatia 16 Cynthia Director 17 Vikramaditya Sharma 18 Srishti Srivastava
31
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CURATOR Anuj Daga ORGANIZING TEAM Akshat Raghava – ID 2009 Aparajita Jain Mahajan– FAV 2003 Malvika Vaswani – ID 2011 Nishita Mehta – Photo + GD 2009 Soaib Grewal – ID 2011 PROJECT MANAGER Avni Bansal PRODUCTION Sandeep Dhariwal
SPECIAL THANKS Christina Hartley – IL 1974 Jagdip Jagpal Kate Sacco Pranali Mehta – IA 2011 Radha Mahendru Rachana Devidayal Shah – GD 1994 Rosanne Somerson – ID 1976 Usha Gawde Umah Jacob Vikramaditya Sharma – GD 2014
PARTNERS The Rhode Island School of Design The India Art Fair Reproscan Agenc Colab - Venue Partner Speakeasy - PR Partner Smoke Vodka Raw Pressery
32
THE RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN(RISD) is a private, nonprofit college founded in Providence, RI in 1877— making it one of the first art and design schools in the US. The mission of Rhode Island School of Design, through its college and museum, is to educate its students and the public in the creation and appreciation of works of art and design, to discover and transmit knowledge and to make lasting contributions to a global society through critical thinking, scholarship and innovation. THE RISD INDIA ALUMNI CLUB was founded in 2012 by a committed group of young alumni who aimed to create a network of artists and designers bound by the common experiences and values of a RISD education. The network now includes over 100+ practising artists and designers across India, Indian Alumni abroad and Indian students currently enrolled at RISD. 33
35