Indo Australian project talks about art and artists in the time of COVID

‘Artists, and The Times’, has been selected as grantees of the Australian Cultural Diplomacy Grant 2021-22 for their collaborative Indo-Pacific ‘Arts Alive’ webinar series, curated by Ramanjit Kaur (Founder Director, The Creative Arts, India) and Tammy Brennan (Director, Testimony Arts, Australia).

This conversational series brought together art practitioners, curators and funders from India, Australia and worldwide to look into the dialogic intersection of different artistic disciplines (music, dance, theatre, visual arts, literature, filmmaking, festival curation, residency and funding), used to create and curate performances and interventions in the international cultural context.

In times when mobility and gathering of people in a ‘space’ is still a subject to menace, this series is an initiative conceptualized by Ramanjit Kaur, to map the journey of the Creators and the Curators before, during and post- pandemic.

Said Kaur, “I believe that art is something that has to be experienced from very close quarters to be able to comprehend its depth. However, that has been hindered owing to the pandemic. This brought me to conceptualise this project as I felt the need to hear from the artists, their personal experiences during these troubled times and how it might have affected their art. I hope that these discussions will create an in-depth archive of the interventions of myriad art forms during these unprecedented times for present and future generations to come.”

The series has completed seven episodes featuring artists from India, UK and the US - Padmashree Neelam Mansigh Chowdhry, Bhai Baldeep Singh, Mahesh Dattani, Michael Walling, Anita Ratnam, Dipankar Mukherjee, Chandra Dasan, Lissa Tyler Renaud, Ricardo Khan and Kabir Singh Chowdhry.

The series will be archived and documented in the form of an E-book and print version.

Rowan Ainsworth, Consul General, Australian Consulate in Kolkata was present at the launch.

Others present included Honorary Consul General Pradeep Khemka, Debanjan Chakravarti - Director of British Council, East, Namit Bajoria – Director, Kutchina and Honorary Consul General of Macedonia, Reena Dewan Director of KCC..

The event was supported by the Australian High Commission, Union Ministry of Culture, Indian Museum, and others.

The event was moderated by Anjum Katyal, editor, author and festival director.