ART MURMUR X GUFTGU
From October to December 2024, Art South Asia Project and Offset Projects present Art Murmur x Guftgu, a dynamic programme offering an in-depth understanding of the last two decades of movements in art and art book publishing across South Asia. The series will explore the evolution of these practices and the global afterlives of publications, with discussions on publishing shifts, artists’ books, editing, writing, and reaching global audiences.
The programme will consist of three themes:
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Publishing Shifts South Asia: This first part of the programme considers how the landscape of arts publishing in South Asia has grown and changed over the last 20 years.
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The Artist Book: Through conversations with artists working with publishing as an art form, this second part will examine experiments within artist book practices and the book as an art work in its own right.
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Navigating Global Audiences: The final part will discuss the practicalities and logistics for publishers within South Asia and the methods for reaching global audiences. This section hopes to form a toolkit for dissemination and distribution within the field.
Featuring insights from specialists in the field, the programme includes online panel discussions and written responses:
ONLINE TALKS
Publishing Shifts South Asia:
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Speakers: Nayantara Gurung Kakshapati (Nepal Picture Library) & Yogesh Maitreya (Panther’s Paw, India)
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Talk Date: Tuesday 22nd October
The Artist Book:
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Speakers: Sohrab Hura (Artist, India) & Halik Azeez (The Packet, Sri Lanka)
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Talk Date: Friday 29th November
Navigating Global Audiences:
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Speakers: Sarasija Subramanian (Reliable Copy, India) & Saira Ansari (Misk Art Institute, Riyadh/KSA)
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Talk Date: Thursday 12 December
WRITING COMMISSIONS
Publishing Shifts South Asia:
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Writers: Rahaab Allana (Alkazi Foundation, India) & Sharmini Pereira (Raking Leaves, Sri Lanka)
The Artist Book:
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Writers: Zahra Malkani & Shahana Rajani (Karachi LaJamia & Exhausted Geographies, Pakistan)
Navigating Global Audiences:
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Writers: Arifur Rahman (Nokta, Bangladesh)
The contributions towards the programme Art Murmur x Guftgu will be archived as recorded talks and written texts accessible on ASAP and Offset Projects websites. The written texts will be compiled into specially designed e-books by Sanket Jadia.
These three e-books are created specifically for this programme and will be published every month, featuring responses from our writers to specific prompts relating to their respective subjects. Designed by Sanket Jadia, each of these downloadable publications will also contain the profiles of the institutions and speakers involved and shall have a QR code to access the talks archive.
This programme is supported by the Faizal & Shabana Foundation.
PARTNER BIOS
Offset Projects is a curatorial initiative by Anshika Varma and has been actively working with contemporary practices in photography through experience-led formats with an emphasis on book-making. The initiative exists within the form of a fluid collective, inviting collaborators to play and experiment within its unstructured identity. It fosters collaboration- curating exhibitions and offering artist talks, workshops, residencies, reading rooms, and decentralised formats of publishing. Its publishing ethos comes from the urgency to work with the book as a site of companionship and support, centering relationship-building as the core tenet of building work. The core engagement for the initiative functions through its publicly accessible photo-book library to explore the various engagements and sociological impact of receiving the world through creative expressions in lens media.
Offset Projects functions with a focus on encouraging and platforming the evolving visual language in South Asia and beyond. We believe that story telling lies at the heart of human creative energy and would like to make a space for collective engagement, meaningful critique and reflective inquiry.
https://offsetprojects.in/
https://www.instagram.com/offsetprojects/?hl=en
Sanket Jadia is a Delhi-based visual artist, graphic designer, and educator, whose work delves into how narratives and counter-narratives shape public discourse around moments of historical violence. A recipient of the Inlaks Fine Arts Award and featured in Forbes 30 Under 30, Sanket has served as an Artist-in-Residence at Khoj International Artists’ Association and participated in residencies like Blurring Boundaries (2020) and Khoj Peers. His group exhibitions include Simulacrum (2022), Pune Biennale (2017), Level 01 (2016), and Activating Space (2015).
