Artalaap
Artalaap is a podcast on visual culture focusing on modern and contemporary art from the South Asian subcontinent. Hosted by art critic Kamayani Sharma, it features interviews with artists, curators, writers, researchers, arts organisation professionals, and culture workers. The conversations delve into the aesthetics, politics, and infrastructure of visual art, offering insights into the region's artistic landscape. The show invites listeners to engage with images and ideas, emphasizing both visual and intellectual explorations.
Episodes
Ep 21: Vestibular Criticism ft. Geraldine Tedder
On this special Artalaap episode, Kamayani Sharma speaks to Kunsthalle Winterthur director Geraldine Tedder about writing and curating practices through the metaphor of the vestibular system. They talk about how criticism and curating can help stabilise and situate ourselves in the contemporary, and about the many forms that the relationships between writing, speaking and listening can take. Throu
Ep 20: Portrait of a Citizen - '2024: Notes from a Generation'
On this Artalaap episode, Kamayani Sharma speaks to Prarthna Singh and writer Snigdha Poonam abouttheir multimedia project 2024: Notes from a Generation. In five years, the two artists travelled all over Indiaphotographing and interviewing people between the ages of 18 and 25, who would vote the national elections of 2024. We talk about how to conduct photoshoots and interviews with a diverse swat
Ep 19: Family Archives - 'Film Pictorial' (1941-1947)
On this Artalaap episode, I, Kamayani speak to Jayant Parashar about his family's legacy -- a pre-Independence film magazine called Film Pictorial, started in Lahore by his grandfather and great-uncle, RK Parashar and ML Parashar. A well-regarded periodical of the 1940s, Film Pictorial shut down once the brothers moved to Delhi after the 1947 Partition.
We talk about how Jayant came across the mag
Ep 18: Remembering the Present - The 1947 Partition
On this Artalaap episode, I, Kamayani Sharma, speak to artist Pritika Chowdhry, whose solo exhibition 'Unbearable Memories, Unspeakable Histories' featuring her anti-memorials to the Partition is currently on view at the South Asia Institute, Chicago.
We talk about the politics of memorialising the 1947 South Asian Partition, the aesthetic challenge of representing collective trauma and the influe
Summer break!
With two seasons behind us, ARTalaap is taking a hiatus over the summer.
We will be back soon with all-new programming -- stay tuned!
Follow us for updates and information on Instagram at @art.alaap and on Twitter @rtalaap.
You can write to us with feedback, suggestions and requests for guests at: artalaap.podcast@gmail.com.
Thank you for your support!
Ep 17: Tales of Silence
On this episode, I Kamayani speak to Arshi Irshad Ahmadzai whose solo exhibition 'Naguftaha-e-Havva' ('The Unspoken Words of Havva') is currently on view at Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai as well as online on the In Touch platform.
https://www.artintouch.in/exhibitions/13-chatterjee-lal-arshi-irshad-ahmadzai-naguftaha-e-havva-the-unspoken-words-of-havva/
We talk about journeying from a s
Ep 16: Indigenous Horizons - The 4th Kathmandu Triennale (2020)
In this episode, I, Kamayani Sharma speak to the curators of the 4th Kathmandu Triennale titled "2077" -- Sheelasha Rajbhandari and Hit Man Gurung. They worked alongside Artistic Director Cosmin Costinas to mount the ongoing edition. (originally scheduled for 2020 but deferred due to the COVID-19 pandemic). The Triennale features hundreds of artists from around the world at five venues across Kath
Ep 15: Sarkari Sci-Fi - FD & the films of Pramod Pati
On this episode, it's gonna be just me, ARTalaap creator and your host, Kamayani Sharma.
I talk about my work on the cinema of cult Films Division auteur Pramod Pati -- through archival audio footage, clips from Pati's films, original commentary (and joking into the void.)
In light of the Indian government's recent widely-criticised move to merge public film units, I dive into an important mo
Ep 14: Imaging Resistance - Shaheen Bagh
In this episode I, Kamayani Sharma, speak to artist, researcher & educator Ita Mehrotra, author of the graphic book ‘Shaheen Bagh: A Graphic Recollection’ (Yoda Press, 2021). On the second anniversary of the incredible protests led by India's Muslim women against the CAA & NRC, in this episode we discuss the role of language in the public sphere, how illustration captures the contempo
Ep 13: A Partitioned Memory - The Lahore Museum
In this episode I, Kamayani Sharma, am in conversation with art historian Aparna Kumar, recipient of the inaugural UC Berkeley South Asia Art and Architecture Dissertation Prize in 2021 for her dissertation on the Lahore Museum — Partition and the Historiography of Art in South Asia (UCLA, 2018).
We discuss the South Asian museum as a locus of studying Partition through art history, how the work
Ep 12: Char/Coal Country
In this episode I, Kamayani Sharma, am in conversation with artist Prabhakar Pachpute, among the winners of the Artes Mundi Prize 2020 about his artistry and engagement with coal mining in his native Chandrapur District, Maharashtra. Pachpute "works in an array of mediums and materials including drawing, light, &nb
Ep 11: The Bahujan Gaze
In this episode I, Kamayani Sharma, am in conversation with Jyoti Nisha, filmmaker, writer and scholar. She is the director of 'BR Ambedkar: Now And Then', a widely anticipated, partially-crowdfunded documentary that is now readying for release. In her essay, ‘Indian Cinema and the Bahujan Spectatorship’ [Economic & Political Weekly, May 2020], she theorised about the politics of the gaze
Ep 10: Art & Labour - Culture Workers Support Trust
In this episode, I, Kamayani Sharma, am in conversation with Shukla Sawant and Annapurna Garimella, Founder Trustees of the Culture Workers Support Trust, an organisation set up in 2019 to and I’m quoting them directly “spread awareness among culture workers about their rights and responsibilities". We discuss the modes and methods by which labour in India's vast culture se
Ep 9: Screenwriting as an Archive of Early Bombay Cinema
As a PhD candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Rakesh Sengupta researched early Indian cinema. His essay 'Writing from the Margins of Media: Screenwriting Practice and Discourse During the First Indian Talkies', published in the Dec 2018 issue of Bioscope [no. 9.2] won the Best Journal Article by Screenwriting Research Network and also received High
Ep 8: Sundance Film Festival 2021 World Cinema Documentary Awardees
At the Sundance Film Festival 2021, Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh won the Special Jury Award: Impact for Change and the Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary category for their debut feature 'Writing With Fire'. On today’s episode, we discuss the political economy of documentary filmmaking, its practitioners’ love-hate relationship with the state (every g
Ep 7: Cognitive - Computational - Cosmic - The 13th Gwangju Biennale (2020)
18 May marks a watershed event in South Korea's ultimately successful pro-democracy movement - the 1980 Gwangju Uprising. As we come up on its 41st anniversary, I speak to Natasha Ginwala, co-Artistic Director, alongside Defne Ayas, of the 13th Gwangju Biennale (1 April 2021 - 9 May 2021). Against the backdrop of Gwangju's position as a cultural event with a revolutio
Ep 6: Solidarity Aesthetic - Artists of Myanmar's Civil Disobedience Movement 2021
On this episode, against the backdrop of Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement that arose in the wake of the military junta's coup of 1 February 2021, I speak to acclaimed Burmese artist Moe Satt about his performance- and multimedia- based practice. We talk about how visual arts practitioners navigate censorship and restraints on civil liberties. We also discuss the way in which Myanmar's indepen
Ep 5: The Webcomic as Political Form - Part 2
This episode is the second in a two-part series on political webcomics in India. In the context of an increasingly repressive regime, the role of allegory, especially in the mode of fantasy and parody, becomes vital. On the Indian Internet, an example is the figure of Rashtraman, a dubious superhero starring in his own webcomic series. I speak to its creato
Ep 4: The Webcomic as Political Form - Part 1
This episode is the first of a two-part series on political webcomics in India. In the context of protests, arrests and judicial intimidation of citizens including artists, we take a look at how the graphic strip format is being deployed to respond to political events in India. I speak to Meher Manda and Mayukh Goswami, co-creators of Jamun Ka Ped, an Instagram-based
Ep 3: Farming as Art - Artists Against the 2020 Indian Agriculture Laws
On this episode, in the wake of India’s 71st anniversary as a republic, we’ll speak about the farmers’ protests that have been raging across the country for more than two months now in opposition to the three farm laws enacted in September 2020. I speak to Shweta Bhattad, a farmer and visual artist, performer, sculptor and founder member of the Gram Art Project collective, a group of farmers, arti
Ep 2: The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts' Photobook Grantees 2020
Photographer Hari Katragadda & writer/editor Shweta Upadhyay were awarded The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts' Photobook Grant 2020 for their collaboration 'I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you'. In this episode, we talk about this award-winning work through its makers' process and influences and the contemporary status of the photobook in India, in the wake of Dayanita Sing
Ep 1: 10 Years of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
India's first major private museum of modern and contemporary art, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi reopens on 5 January 2021 after a period of closure in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic. I speak to Akansha Rastogi, Senior Curator (Exhibitions & Programs), KNMA about a decade of institutional programming, her own curatorial practice within the museum space and of course the stak
What is 'Artalaap' All About?
Delve into the discourse around the aesthetics, politics, and infrastructure of visual art. Artalaap is a podcast on visual culture focusing on modern & contemporary art from the South Asian subcontinent. Art critic Kamayani Sharma interviews artists, curators, writers, researchers, arts organisation professionals, and culture workers. Come for the images, stay for the insights!
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