LUX
Art Exchange: Moving Image
“Art Exchange: Moving Image” 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. The programme is supported by the British Council and organised by LUX, the UK agency for the support and promotion of artists working with the moving image and Art South Asia Project (ASAP). Launched in 2023, the programme aims to foster an enriching exchange of ideas and practices by supporting selected curators in engaging with and responding to moving image works from the British Council Visual Arts Collection.
Throughout the programme, the selected curators will receive comprehensive online mentorship from experienced professionals at LUX and ASAP. This mentorship will equip them with advanced curatorial skills and insights. Additionally, the programme includes a fully funded research visit to the UK, scheduled to coincide with Asian Art Week in London in late October 2024 including a day in Birmingham. This UK visit will offer the curators an immersive experience, allowing them to explore contemporary art practices and engage with leading figures in the art world.
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 Visual Arts 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.
ABOUT THE SELECTED 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, alongwith 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, 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 (2016-2014).
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 practise 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.
Press coverage includes
Artnet, 24 July 2024: https://link.artnet.com/view/615cb5cc7a6ff43de82ffef8lj6do.i/64162a72
Asia Art Pacific, Weekly News Roundup: July 26, 2024: https://artasiapacific.com/news/weekly-news-roundup-july-26-2024
L – R: Anuj Malhotra, Bunu Dhungana, Kehkasha Sabah, L – R: Sandev Handy, Sarah Rajper
Title: Art Exchange: Moving Image - Information Session and Q&A
Date: Tuesday 23 April 2024
Panelists: E.N. Mirembe & Benjamin Cook, Director of LUX
ABOUT LUX
LUX is an arts organisation that supports and promotes visual artists working with the moving image. Founded as a charity in 2002 it builds on the work of its predecessor organisations the London Filmmakers Co-operative, London Video Arts and the Lux Centre and a history which stretches back to the 1960s.
LUX offers a rolling programme of exhibitions, screenings, workshops, courses and talks as well as a reference library and mediatheque. LUX also represents the UK’s only significant collection of moving image works produced by visual artists dating from the 1920s to the present day, consisting of over 6000 works by more than 1500 artists.
