We’re delighted to announce the five curators about to take part in the ‘Art Exchange: Moving Image’ programme in South Asia, supported by us together with LUX (UK) and ASAP (UK).
‘Art Exchange: Moving Image’ is a cross-cultural curatorial professional development and exhibition initiative designed for early to mid-career visual arts curators from Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Launched in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2023, the Art Exchange programme helps to support selected curators to exchange ideas and engage and respond to moving image works for our British Council Collection.
The five curators from South Asia will receive online mentorship from experienced professionals at LUX and ASAP plus a fully funded research visit to the UK. The culmination of the programme will see each curator creating a unique exhibition in their home country, inspired by the moving image works from the British Council Collection. These exhibitions are scheduled to open from Spring 2025 onwards, in collaboration with local venues, fostering a vibrant exchange of artistic ideas and cultural narratives across South Asia.
Meet the Art Exchange curators
Anuj Malhotra is a critic, curator, and filmmaker based out of New Delhi, India. In 2012, he founded Lightcube, an acclaimed film collective, regularly touted as one of the leading resources for pioneering research and presentation of image-forms in the country. He also helped conceive the theoretical model for The Dhenuki Cinema Project, a multifaceted and versatile project that mobilises populations in rural and semi-urban areas of the country through the medium of film. Anuj also publishes Umbra, the country’s only newspaper devoted to the study of the topographies of alternative film in India, along with handling the curatorial duties for The Garga Archives, a digital museum dedicated to the life and work of B.D. Garga, one of the foremost authorities on the history of film in the world. He is currently at work on The Mapmaker from Baghdad, a project that charts a speculative cartography of underground film cultures in 1970s Bombay.
Bunu Dhungana’s artistic practice engages with personal, familial and social realms, using photography, film, text and curation. Through her work, she is interested in questioning the notions of gender and patriarchy and how these forces shape and influence women’s lives and experiences in society. Lately, she has been thinking about the inherent complexities and contradictions within these issues and the socio-political significance of art-making. Her process is intuitive and is driven by a desire to provoke conversations. She currently lives in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Kehkasha Sabah is an independent curator, writer and researcher from Bangladesh, with a decade of experience working locally and internationally. Kehkasha’s artistic approach lies at the intersection of art, culture, pedagogy and technology, departing from curing the art ecosystem to producing narratives of care. Currently, Kehkasha is pursuing academic research seeking new curatorial methodologies in post-pandemic and posthuman societies, focusing on collective resonance, social inclusion, ecological thinking and decolonial perspectives. She has curated over twenty exhibitions and her most significant contributions include: Land Water and Border (2021), De|Real (2020), Collective Body (2020), Mercury Falling (2017), Alchemy of Losses (2017), Self/Identity (2016), and Celebrated Violence Series 1-5 (2014-2016).
Sandev Handy is a curator, artist and art educator based in Colombo. He serves as Senior Curator at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka, is one part of an artist collective called the Packet and one part of an independent research studio – between Zurich, Makassar, Karachi and Colombo – called the Studio for Memory Politics, together with Vera Ryser, Angela Wittwer and Aziz Sohail. His research and practice cross nationhood and its de-colonial ruptures, Afro-Asian world-building and networks of solidarities, land politics and botanical and bureaucratic naturalisms.
Sarah Rajper is a curator, graphic designer and visual artist based in Islamabad, Pakistan. Her interdisciplinary practice delves into a wide array of themes, encompassing digital art, environmental conservation, social justice, and others. Rajper has served as Creative Producer and Co-Curator for Lahore Digital Arts Festival in 2023, Pakistan’s first digital art festival. She has worked with organisations such as the EU National Institutes for Culture, UNDP-Pakistan, Goethe-Institut Pakistan, World Bank Group, WWF-Pakistan, National Commission for Human Rights Pakistan and various educational institutes, museums, galleries and embassies in Pakistan. Her contributions were recognized with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Excellence Award, presented by the Governor of Punjab in 2023.
Emma Dexter, Director of Visual Arts and the British Council Collection said: ‘The British Council is delighted to invite curators from South Asia to engage with and respond to the British Council Collection. LUX and Art South Asia Project’s knowledge and expertise in artist’s moving image and modern and contemporary visual arts from South Asia and its diaspora make them the ideal partners to lead this programme. There will also be the opportunity for the South Asian curators to connect with their peers in the UK. This programme continues our commitment to broker international connections for the UK visual arts sector and support the growth of the visual arts sectors across South Asia.’
Further announcements around ‘Art Exchange: Moving Image’ will follow from December 2024, including projects at five venues across South Asia and six venues across Sub-Saharan Africa.
