2016–2020 Mittal Institute Arts Program Report

ARTS PROGRAM REPORT 2016-20

THE LAKSHMI MITTAL AND FAMILY SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

COVER CREDIT: Sakshi Gupta

No Title (From the series, ‘At the Still Point of the Turning World) concrete

15.2 x 15.2 x 15.2 cm 2015

The inner light that shines as pure experience in all beings, that alone is the self which is indicated by the word I: this is for certain. Yoga Vasishta (VI.1:53)

In the sea of constant movement and change that we live in, this series of work explores the potentiality of a space of permanence, a space that could exist for

its own sake. Perhaps it is a space where all is gathered in the solidity of the present moment. Perhaps it is the forgetfulness that occurs when one is immersed in the act of doing. Perhaps the precious stillness is the space of experience itself - one which exists anyway, whether we aspire to it or not, whether we in fact know about it or not.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Welcome

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Program on Conservation of Culture

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Visiting Artist Fellowship Program

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Visiting Artist Fellows Sakshi Gupta (2019): Artist Spotlight

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Sagar Chhetri (2019): Artist Spotlight

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Shah Numair Ahmed Abbasi (2020)

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Suhasini Kejriwal (2020)

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Mahboob Jokhio (2019)

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Krupa Makhija (2019)

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Aman Kaleem (2018)

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Samsul Alam Helal (2018)

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Faiham Ebna Sharif (2018)

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Imran Channa (2018)

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Kabi Raj Lama (2018)

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Rajyashri Goody (2018)

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Madhu Das (2017)

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Rabindra Shrestha (2017)

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Meenakshi Sengupta (2016)

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Komal Shahid Khan (2016)

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Paribartana Mohanty (2016)

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Milan Rai (2016)

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Basir Mahmood (2015)

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Ranjit Kandalgaonkar (2015)

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IN THE YEARS TO COME, THE MITTAL INSTITUTE WILL CONTINUE ITS DEDICATION TO THE ARTS AND CULTURAL CONSERVATION, ENGAGING WITH SOUTH ASIA’S ARTISTIC ECOSYSTEM AND CONTRIBUTING TO THE INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL THAT SURROUNDS IT. — JINAH KIM

WELCOME The Mittal Institute’s Arts Program builds bridges between South Asia’s prolific artists and Harvard faculty and students, cultivating research that builds our understanding of the region’s social, political, cultural, and economic issues through the lens of art and design.

knowledge sharing, research, training, networking, and policy recommendations in the practice of arts and heritage conservation. With hands-on, awarenessbuilding workshops in the region, we will work to impart robust conservation training and knowledge to South Asia’s conservators.

Made possible by the Arts Advisory Council, the Arts Program at the Mittal Institute has flourished over the past few years, convening artists and experts from all over the world to collaborate, share their insights, and build valuable knowledge that will pave our way forward. The Visiting Artist Fellowship continues, bringing artists from South Asia to Harvard’s campus to perform research that will enrich their artistic practice, engaging with Harvard students, faculty, and community members.

We are endlessly excited about the program, and pleased to share this Arts Report to show its growth since inception. In the years to come, the Mittal Institute will continue its dedication to the arts and cultural conservation, engaging with South Asia’s artistic ecosystem and contributing to the intellectual capital that surrounds it.

We look forward to expanding the Program for Conservation of Culture, which will address some of the issues that surround

Jinah Kim Gardner Cowles Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University; Faculty Director, Arts Program, Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute

Arts Program Report 2016-20

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PROGRAM ON CONSERVATION OF CULTURE Throughout South Asia, a wealth of art and cultural sites unveil the past. To preserve this invaluable heritage, it is essential to teach and nurture robust conservational practices.

South Asian heritage manifests in many forms — through the region’s art, architecture, and traditional practices.

These cultural facets and the sites within which they are found narrate stories of our past and help us understand our origins, our dynamic ways of life, and our habits.

Up until this point, expertise from outside of South Asia has been crucial to informing practices around cultural conservation.

However, it has become clear that in order for these practices to grow and make a sustainable impact, we need academics, practitioners, and others involved to understand and adapt to the regional context and the nuances associated with materials, resources, climate, legal parameters, history, and more.

Due in large part to the bureaucratic and siloed nature of museums and cultural institutions in South Asia, there is a lack of interdisciplinary research and collaborative practices. Integration into established global networks of expertise and knowledge-sharing could create competent administrators, historians, and conservators who could work together to build the infrastructure needed for an ecosystem of cultural conservation in South Asia.

The Program for Conservation of Culture (PCC) will begin by addressing some of the current problems that include, but are not

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The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University

limited to, network-building and knowledge sharing, research, training, and policy recommendations. This can be spurred by the creation of awareness-building workshops, such as the Museums & the City Workshop held at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum in Mumbai in September 2019, which explored how museums can create an expanded culture of civic life that represents and nurtures the diverse and plural sensibilities of those with whom they share space.

The workshop covered a variety of lenses through which we can view the museum: as a forum, a mechanism for cultural partnership, a platform versus a container, a cultural infrastructure, and more. The participants grappled with issues of museum management, patronage, and conservation,

PROGRAM COORDINATORS JINAH KIM Gardner Cowles Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University MEENA HEWETT Executive Director, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University

looking to develop strategies for effective curatorial practices moving forward.

Currently, the research aspects of conservation are nascent, and the equipment for analyzing works of art is limited and expensive. The development of the Program for Conservation of Culture is one step toward addressing the lack of manpower and knowledge transfer in South Asia’s cultural conservation, which will need to be tackled by both museums and the educational institutions that train conservators in order for the practice of conservation to thrive in the future.

CSMVS Textile Conservator

Vijaydurg Map (242.5cm X 209cm; 18th century; Tempera on paper) on display at the CSMVS museum; photos by Meena Hewett.

Arts Program Report 2016-20

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VISITING ARTIST FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM Artists of diverse backgrounds visit Harvard’s campus to expand their work, using various mediums to comment on social, economic, and political issues in South Asia.

As part of the Visiting Artist Fellowship Program, selected artists from South Asia visit Cambridge to deepen their artistic explorations of South Asia through the use of Harvard’s museums, libraries, and archives.

These fellows are connected with faculty and students, using their time here to build on the Harvard community's understanding of South Asian social, political, cultural, and economic issues through the lens of art and design.

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The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University

PROGRAM COORDINATORS JINAH KIM Gardner Cowles Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University SNEHA SHRESTHA Arts Program Manager, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute

"

DURING OUR OPENING OF THE SHOW AT HARVARD ED PORTAL, I MET ANNETTE EZEKIEL. SHE WAS BORN IN KARACHI TO A JEWISH FAMILY. MEETING HER A SECOND TIME OVER DINNER AT HER PLACE, ANNETTE'S AMAZING ORAL MEMOIRS AND HER PHOTOGRAPHS CHANNELED MY RESEARCH INTERESTS TOWARD A DIRECTION THAT I NEVER HAD THOUGHT OF. — MAHBOOB JOKHIO THE MOST IMPORTANT AND EXCITING THING ABOUT WORKING AND RESEARCHING AT HARVARD IS THE WAY I CAN GET IN TOUCH WITH SOME IMPORTANT PROFESSORS THROUGH CLASSES … NOW THEY ARE GUIDING ME NOT ONLY FOR MY PROJECTS AT HARVARD, BUT ALSO FOR MY ART PRACTICE. — KRUPA MAKHIJA

Scenes from the opening reception for the 2019 “Partition Perspectives” art exhibition at the Harvard Ed Portal; photos by Grant Baker.

Arts Program Report 2016-20

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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Sakshi Gupta is an accomplished sculptor and mixed media artist from India and one of the Mittal Institute’s Fall 2019 Visiting Artist Fellows. Her practice frames human conditions of understanding, progressing, suffering, and halting due to a lack or gain of knowledge, will, or energy. Her work grapples with the need to achieve a balance between life’s inherent polarities, exhibiting this by utilizing materials often considered waste or ordinary. She’s dedicated her life to an immersive journey through form and material, toward the non-material and experiential.

Upon her arrival to Boston, Sakshi set out on her journey at Harvard University to investigate the role of materiality in art, expanding upon notions of time, space, value, and process. She was prepared to rethink not only her relationship with spaces and materials, but to examine fresh ways of interweaving them vis-à-vis her practice and home context. She signed up to take "Object Matter of Jellyfish: Sculpture Course," a course offered by Nora Schultz at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, hoping to explore the conflicted aspect of the role of the individual in today’s time and stimulate transformation through art.

SAKSHI GUPTA FALL 2019

Sakshi’s time at Harvard has been reorienting and rejuvenating, allowing her to look back on her own pedagogies and perspectives as an artist — specifically as a sculptor — in various ways. Schultz’s class has pushed her to reimagine her concept of sculpture, challenging the

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notion of sculpture as the formalizing and physicalizing of an idea. Schultz encouraged Sakshi and her classmates to consider other sensorium, such as sound and smell, as capable of evoking the same statement as a conventional, solid form sculpture would.

Though this pushed Sakshi outside of her comfort zone and was initially unsettling, it became a fertile space for new ideas to be planted. Despite practicing for over 10 years, Sakshi believes that her intellectual exposure at Harvard was formative for her future as an artist.

Sakshi’s time at Harvard also opened her eyes to the boundaries she had been imposing on herself, in regards to her conception of a “studio.” Although she had already been collecting scrap materials from across Mumbai, her home city, and bringing them into her studio, Sakshi says that her experience at Harvard has made her redefine a studio as one that encompasses the whole city. By making the urban scale her canvas, Sakshi can engage more directly with the environment, creating with it, within it, and around it.

Sakshi values her time at Harvard tremendously because of the distance it has given her from the physical context within which she most often works. With this distance has come a new state of mind and the opportunity to redefine her practice and add new flare to her work. Interdisciplinarity was a large part of Sakshi’s time in Boston, taking her to events across Harvard’s various schools and introducing her to numerous

scholars and faculty whose work intersects with her own, such as Karthik Pandian, an Assistant Professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, and Rahul Mehrotra, Professor of Urban Design and Planning.

As she prepares to head back to Mumbai to resume her practice, Sakshi looks back on her time at Harvard and with the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute as essential to her evolution and growth as an artist. Now, she believes shaking up her

work is something she needs to do every few years. No matter what the next phase and shake-up may bring, what Sakshi learned at Harvard will become a consistent thread throughout her larger artistic practice.

Some Beast, Scrap Iron. (2008), Approx 210 x 225 cm, overall dimensions variable, contingent on installation arrangement.

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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Sagar Chhetri is an accomplished photographer from Nepal and one of the Mittal Institute’s Fall 2019 Visiting Artist Fellows. His photography series, "Eclipse," delves into the identity conflict experienced by the Madhesi community of Nepal and his Madhesi peers through profound imagery of their day-to-day lives.

How has your journey in photography been so far?

In 2011, I moved to Kathmandu from my hometown in eastern Nepal. I had a camera back then, but no idea how to use it. I saw an ad in a local newspaper regarding a photography workshop; I contacted them and eventually got in. That was not an ordinary workshop for me — it enamored me with the world of visual arts. The following year, I got into a visual storytelling workshop.

There, I met people who mentored me, teaching me how to read an image and that photography can also be about other things — an intangible, a feeling.

SAGAR CHHETRI FALL 2019

We don’t have photography school back in Nepal. We have an art school where only recently students have been able to take photography as electives, but that’s it. Since I wanted to take photography further as an academic subject, I looked for schools outside of Nepal. I got into a photography school in Bangladesh and completed a diploma in documentary photography, learning with one of the finest photography mentors that our part of the world has

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produced, alongside fellow photographers from the region and the West. After that, I looked for other opportunities in places where I could widen my horizon in terms of photographic knowledge, and I got into the Danish School of Media and Journalism, where I studied photojournalism and learned in a world-class program that gave me the strength to go forward.

In your photography series, "Eclipse," you delve into the identity of your Madhesi peers in the southern belt of Nepal. What are you trying to convey about this community through your work?

I’m still in the process of understanding what I really want to convey, but I’m trying to learn more. I was born and raised in that part of the world; all parts of my body have been acquainted with the issues of the people and the community for a long time. But it was only recently that I finally understood that something wrong was happening. Nepal drafted its new constitution during a festive time, which was immediately boycotted by a big chunk of people, especially the Madhesi community. A strong voice was raised by the Madhesi community through an uprising that lasted for months.

Soon after that, in 2015, there was an upheaval in post-conflict Nepal and an earthquake had hit the country. Nepal was going through a very crucial time in history, and I wanted to understand how this border

region has become a salient incubator of political grievances among the people living there. I wanted to know why the people living in that region are Nepali when they cross the border, and when they travel up into the territory of Nepal toward the center, they are often called Indian. So, I became interested in this identity conflict that they have, where people recognize them in a dual way, a different way, based on their look, based on the language they speak, based on many other features that they possess. I thought that it was wrong, and I wanted to understand why this happens.

What do you hope to study during your time as a Visiting Artist Fellow at the Mittal Institute?

Right now, there’s a hope for a more egalitarian future for this Madhesi community and my Madhesi peers. But now, as a visual practitioner, I want to use my craft to tell their story. It’s a project I started in 2015, but it’s the most important issue right now in Nepal, the biggest fight of my generation, I would say: the fight for the identity of my generation. Now, I want to look into the question of identity and the idea of how people feel marginalized, the question of this open border, the history of the Nepal-India border, post-colonial South Asia and India, and the effects it had on Nepal at that time.

A boy in a burning field, Bhairawa, Nepal, 2018.

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SHAH NUMAIR AHMED ABBASI SPRING 2020 Shah Numair Ahmed Abbasi's practice draws on popular culture, anecdotes, and colloquialisms to stage personal and social narratives in an attempt to challenge the politics behind how gender is socially constructed and performed. The figure of the male nude is a recurring theme, often presented in ways that undermine or question

Of all the fallen men, 2017, mixed media on fabric.

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idealized masculine virtues. Recent turns in his practice observe how queer men navigate issues related to their identity during interactions within and beyond the community, and across domestic, public, and virtual environments.

At Harvard, Abbasi will investigate the construction and performance of binary genders and sexualities in South Asia as consequences of colonization. He will research whether the practice, acceptance, and visibility of the spectrum of genders and sexualities pre-date colonization.

SUHASINI KEJRIWAL SPRING 2020

Suhasini Kejriwal lives and works in Kolkata, India. She received a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree from the Parsons School of Design in New York, and a Master’s of Fine Arts degree from Goldsmiths College, London. Kaleidoscopic and bordering on the psychedelic, Kejriwal’s paintings revel in minutiae and overflow with information.

Her technique synthesizes the disciplines

of painting, drawing, photography, and collage into a cohesive whole. Since 2015, she has explored the changing urban landscape in India, creating rich, layered photos that echo the daily lives of the people who live and work in these areas.

Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Galerie Christian Hosp, Berlin (2010); the Anokhi Museum, Jaipur (2009); Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai (2008); Nature Morte, New Delhi (2007 and 2005, 2014); and Gallery SKE, Bangalore (2004), among numerous group exhibitions in galleries and institutions around the world.

Eden V; Acrylic on canvas; 305×183cm (120×72").

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MAHBOOB JOKHIO SPRING 2019

Mahboob Jokhio is a visual artist based in Lahore, Pakistan. He graduated with distinction from Beaconhouse National University in visual arts as an UMISSA scholar, and currently teaches at his alma mater. Jokhio’s work considers the nature of images; their claims to objectivity and their ability to manipulate meaning and perception. Working in various mediums, he questions image production and reception through subjects ranging from history and religion to love and violence. These investigations often incorporate irony, dark humor, and self-referential critiques.

Jokhio’s work has been displayed in numerous exhibitions throughout Sindh, including the Karachi Biennale; a group show at the Canvas Gallery; in "Everything is Embedded in History" at LLF; and more. After his first solo show, “In the City of Lost Times,” in 2018 at The Tetley in Leeds, UK, he was awarded the Gasworks Residency at London, an IFTCF Emerging Artist Award, and a residency at Villa Poggio in Verde, Italy.

A day in the museum of wasted loves.

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KRUPA MAKHIJA SPRING 2019 Krupa Makhija is a multi-disciplinary artist based in New Delhi, India. She holds a BFA and MFA in painting from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Her works are representations of her experiences about culture, language, and identity, a practice she describes as "Cultural Amnesia." Makhija was initially trained as a painter, but her practice has evolved to include sculpture and installations.

She has been part of several international residencies, including the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum's residency program in 2017, Glenfiddich’s international artists residency in Scotland in 2015, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in South Korea in 2012. Her first solo show, "An Amnesiac’s Memory," was organized and sponsored by Glenfiddich at Gallery Art District XIII in New Delhi in 2016.

Sindh-hind.

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AMAN KALEEM FALL 2018 Aman Kaleem is the founder and CEO of Kahaani Wale, a social impact communication organization. She is a Young India Fellow and has been recognized by the Government of India and the United Nations as a “Make a Difference Leader” for her work

A still from Aman Kaleem’s documentary, “Shaadi, Sex, Aur Parivaar.”

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in the South Asian region. Her best-known film, “Shaadi, Sex Aur Parivaar” (Marriage, Sex and Family), premiered at International Film Festival Madrid. It contains significant autobiographical elements and draws on the lived experiences of a single woman in India. Currently, Kaleem is creating an online repository of protest movements across South Asia. At Harvard, she worked on a project to create a platform for immersive spatial experiences that brings the viewer onto the same stage as the protagonist.

SAMSUL ALAM HELAL FALL 2018

Samsul Alam Helal is a photographer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He received a degree in photography from Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. His recent work, “Love Studio,” depicts the portraits of a working-class community where an old studio in Dhaka transforms into a neighborhood venue to represent the dreams, hopes, and desires of factory workers, their families, and their unemployed neighbors. In another portrait series on Hijra, a transgender community, the camera hones in on protagonists who dance and sing for an absent audience. Helal’s aim is to go beyond sociocultural and political issues. He explores identity, dreams, and longing, and plays with the psychological realm of these issues to understand the deeper marks they create.

A piece from Samsul Alam’s series, “Runaway Lovers.”

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FAIHAM EBNA SHARIF SPRING 2018 Faiham Ebna Sharif is a photographer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. During his time at Harvard, Sharif collected archival

Modern day bonded labor.

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documents on the tea trade in South Asia using Harvard’s library, museums, and other resources. He investigated how the Opium War and freight service to America influenced the global tea trade in the nineteenth century. During his time at Harvard, he organized a seminar that discussed how anthropological research can produce an artistic output in a new form. How should researchers trace back whitewashed history?

IMRAN CHANNA SPRING 2018 Imran Channa is an artist based in Pakistan.

His practice deals with interrogating the intersections between power and knowledge, with a primary focus on the documentation and dissemination of historical narratives and events. He explores how these narra-

tives can be fabricated, and how that fabrication can override our collective memory to shape individual and social consciousness and alter human responses. His work draws attention to the ingredients required for the process of documentation, highlighting how history is recorded, framed, and manufactured via modes such as photography, archaeology, and literature. Channa is interested in how these modes are instrumentalized in the perversion of knowledge and the construction of consciousness.

A piece from the Badshahnama series, 2011.

Arts Program Report 2016-20

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KABI RAJ LAMA SPRING 2018 Kabi Raj Lama is an artist from Nepal who creates woodcut prints. During his time at

A Ray of Hope, 2016.

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Harvard, Raj Lama envisioned a series of woodcut prints using the foundation of the ongoing reconstruction of cultural sites in Kathmandu, as well as his research on flood victims in New England. During his time at Harvard, Raj Lama worked with students to create prints using wooden boards and artisanal paper brought from Nepal.

RAJYASHRI GOODY SPRING 2018 Rajyashri Goody is an installation artist from the United Kingdom, based in Pune, India.

Her practice revolves around the complexities of Dalit identity seen through the lens

of larger social, political, economic, and religious structures at play. Currently, she is exploring the strengthening voice of everyday Dalit resistance historically and in current times, through the politics of food, memory, writing, and reusing and recycling as an act of resistance. During her time at Harvard, Goody was mentored by Professor Ajantha Subramanian, Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies.

Bhakar, Ceramic, Red Chillis, Plastic.

Arts Program Report 2016-20

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MADHU DAS SPRING 2017 Madhu Das is a multi-disciplinary visual artist based in Mumbai, India. His artistic practice is primarily concerned with the projection of identity onto the social and natural world, in a way that the two are woven together in the Indian space (both mythic space and actual). It explores both conceptual and material sensibilities through a range of media, including drawing and painting, photography, performance, video, site-specific interventions, collaborative community projects, and interactive and performative installations.

Das received his Master of Arts in painting from the Saroji Naidu School of Fine Arts and Communication at the University of Hyderabad in 2013 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the College of Fine Arts in Bangalore in 2009. At Harvard, Das participated in undergraduate courses and delivered a seminar titled “Landscape of Abstraction,� chaired by Susan Bean.

Landscape of confronted abstraction.

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RABINDRA SHRESTHA SPRING 2017 Rabindra Shrestha is a Nepalese visual artist who uses installations, pen and ink drawings, paintings, traditional paintings (Paubha), illustrations, cartoons, and ceramic art in his visual expressions. Shrestha’s work has been exhibited throughout the National Fine Art exhibition; the KochiMuzirise Bien-

nale 2014, India; and the Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh. He received the National Special Award (NAFA) from National Academy of Fine Arts, and was a winner of the US Embassy Art Competition, Nepal.

During his time at Harvard, Shrestha held an interactive exhibition titled “No War: We Are All Connected,” where he created line drawings of the fingerprints of exhibition guests.

His seminar highlighted the uniqueness of individuals, as well as the similarities that bond us together.

Earthquake line and our Heritage, 2016.

Arts Program Report 2016-20

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MEENAKSHI SENGUPTA FALL 2016 Meenakshi Sengupta is a visual artist based in Kolkata, India. She holds a B.V.A. in painting from the University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India, and a M.F.A. with distinction in painting from the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, India. In her work, she uses traditional pictorial representation to push formal and aesthetic conventions, producing new meaning by using wit and irony to explore gender identity and complexities in contemporary life.

Sengupta shared her work through the seminar “Boys Don’t Cry,” which focused on the celebration of womanhood and how Sengupta came into this work. She spoke about her practice and how she developed her language primarily surrounded by conventional art practice.

Lady with a red rose, 2015.

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KOMAL SHAHID KHAN FALL 2016 Komal Khan is a visual artist based in Islamabad, Pakistan. She graduated from the University of Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan in 2012 and holds a Master’s in Fine Arts from Fatima Jinnah Women University in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, with a specialization in miniature painting. She began her career with several group shows in art galleries in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, then moved on to Lahore and Karachi. She currently teaches at the National College of Arts Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

During her time at Harvard, Khan delivered a seminar titled “Waking Whispers,” which touched on her recent work and what she calls “poetics of masquerade,” in which the painted narratives are timeless and familiar.

Imagined Immortals.

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PARIBARTANA MOHANTY SPRING 2016

Paribartana Mohanty is a Delhi-based artist whose multi-disciplinary practice ranges from oil painting to video and performance.

His works are inspired both by everyday experiences and in-depth research. He is interested in the ideas of simultaneity and

A still from ‘Act the Victim.'

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multiplicity, which he navigates through experimental video and performance.

At Harvard, Mohanty gave a seminar, toured museums, met with students and faculty, and attended classes. His project at the time, “Act the Victim,” used interactive performances based on a simple invitation to “act” as a victim, positioning people in the discomforts of victimhood and crisis. The project came from a video he made, “PostMughal Hunting Scene,” which was based on a victim of the 2002 riots in Gujarat.

MILAN RAI SPRING 2016

ing people and communities to effect social change and awareness. Particularly, Rai has used his “White Butterfly” project to support the response after Nepal’s devastating earthquake in 2015.

Milan Rai’s “White Butterfly” project is a personal art installation that has grown into a global outreach for different community causes and concerns. It is a demonstration of how the role of art can take different turns when shared across social media, connect-

During his visit to Harvard, Rai engaged with Harvard for Nepal, a student group that was formed to unite Harvard’s response after the 2015 earthquake. Thousands of white butterflies were installed across Harvard campus, and Rai invited the community to write its wishes on the wings of each butterfly.

Art installation by Milan Rai at Harvard.

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BASIR MAHMOOD FALL 2015 Using video, film, and photographs, Basir Mahmood’s work weaves together various threads of thoughts, findings, and insights into poetic sequences, building various

A still from 'A Message to the Sea,' 2012.

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forms of narratives. In collaboration with the Harvard College Pakistan Association, Basir hosted a workshop titled “A Memory, a Monument, a Material,” in which he encouraged students to collect and recollect memories through a brainstorming session.

The students found that, though their backgrounds varied, words like “home,” “school,” and “time” invoked similar memories and thoughts.

RANJIT KANDALGAONKAR FALL 2015 Based in Mumbai, Ranjit Kandalgaonkar’s art practice focuses primarily on the unseen or ignored processes of urbanization. In his work, he draws upon contemporary visual arts media, archival documentation. and historical artifacts to document, represent, and critique urban flows. His other projects include Gentricity, Build/Browse, 7 Isles Unclaimed, and Stories of Philanthropic Trusts, a collaboration with architects and public health officials to map locations of philanthropic trusts. His art practice finds unique opportunities to rethink and challenge the conventional modes of research to offer a possible new mode of dissemination.

Borivali v/s Virar, 2009.

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EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

The Mittal Family

KP Balaraj, MBA ’97 (India) and Sumir Chadha, MBA ’97 (USA), Chairs, Advisory Council Dipti Mathur (USA), Chair, Arts Council

Tarun Khanna, Faculty Director, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute Meena Hewett, Executive Director, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute

FRIENDS OF THE MITTAL INSTITUTE

ADVISORY COUNCIL

Chairs: KP Balaraj, MBA '97 (India) Sumir Chadha, MBA '97 (USA)

Syed Babar Ali, AMP '73 (Pakistan) Kushagra Nayan Bajaj (India) Kuntala Das (USA)

Mark Fuller '75, MBA '78, JD '79, and Jo

Nadeem Elahi, MBA '01 (Pakistan), The Resource Group

Anwarul Quadir Foundation (USA)

Usha and Diaz Neesamoney (USA)

Faculty Director: Jinah Kim, Gardner Cowles Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University Chair: Dipti Mathur (USA) Arts Program Advisor: Shanay Jhaveri (USA)

Froman (USA)

Meera Gandhi (USA)

Archan Basu '93 and Madeline Jie Wang '97 (USA)

Vikram Gandhi, MBA '89, ExEd '00 (USA/India) Mala Haarmann '91, MBA '96 (UK)

Poonam Bhagat (India)

Anuradha and Anand Mahindra '77, MBA

Anurag Bhargava (India/USA) Radhika Chopra (India)

'81 (India) Gobind Akoi, GMP '10, The Imperial Hotel (India)

ARTS COUNCIL

Karen '82, and Sanjeev Mehra '82, MBA '86 (USA) Victor Menezes (USA)

Chandrika and Dalip Pathak (UK)

Chandni and Mukesh Prasad '93 (USA) Sribala Subramanian and Arvind Raghunathan (USA)

Rajiv and Anupa Sahney (India)

Parul and Gaurav Swarup, MBA '80 (India) Tom Varkey, MBA '97

Osman Khalid Waheed '93 (Pakistan) Arshad Zakaria '85, MBA ’87 (USA)

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Sunil Hirani (USA)

Chandrika Pathak (UK/India)

Pinky and Sanjay Reddy (India) Omar Saeed (Pakistan)

Sana Rezwan Sait (USA)

Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani (Bangladesh) Shilpa Sanger (USA)

Osman Khalid Waheed '93 (Pakistan)

Arts Program Report 2016-20

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34 The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University

CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138 https://mittalsouthasiainstitute.harvard.edu/