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 magazine, its role -- similar to other high-profile film publications of that era -- as a snapshot of South Asia's urban cinema culture straddling India and Pakistan's Independence as well as the scatter ..read more

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 influence of feminist historiography on understanding the Partition. We also touch upon drawing parallels with other colonial divisions of territory as well as ongoing civil conflict in the global south, an ..read more

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 ..read more

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 small town to a career in the visual arts, the evolution of a distinct figural language, the possibilities of abstraction as an aesthetic mode during a period of repression and Arshi's engagement with ..read more

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 moment in the history of the Film Division (FD) through the practice of one of its filmmakers. I discuss how the sound design of Pramod Pati's experimental shorts, produced by the Indian government at t ..read more

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 contemporary differently from lens-based practices and how the graphic serial form allows movement among different registers & types of material. We also talk about mixed media methods of comics-making an ..read more

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 of artist Zarina influenced this dissertation and the violent logistics and rhetorics of dividing civilisational heritage.  We touch upon the challenges of cross-border scholarshi ..read more

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,   stopmotion  animations,  sound  and  sculptural  forms.  His  use  of   charcoal  has  a  direct  connection  to his ..read more

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 from her perspective as a Dalit woman viewer and media researcher. Jyoti was  Director’s Assistant on Neeraj Ghaywan's Geeli Pucchi [Dharma Productions, 2021], a short that was part of the Netfl ..read more

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 sector can start to organise and collectivise, how stakeholders across public and private sectors can come together for worker-oriented solutions to entrenched problems and how forms of workplace violen ..read more