Fine Art Award Ceremony 2022
The Fine Art Award Ceremony this year proved to be a wonderful forum where ideas and notions of identity, environment, migration, personal histories and belonging were exchanged.
The Ceremony was hosted on 16th February, 2022 via Zoom. The event began with a welcome by the Chairperson of the Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, Azad Shivdasani, followed by presentations by the five awardees of 2022, Ankit Ravani, Arpita Akhanda, Debashish Paul, Hrishitonoy Dutta, and Mallika Visvanathan. The keynote address was delivered by Inlaks Alumnus, Professor of History at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and Director of the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, Dr. Dilip Menon.
During his welcome, Mr. Shivdasani reminded the audience of the important role artists play in society. The role of thinker, of one who questions and critiques, offering alternative perspectives to the world around us. And just as he suggested, through their presentations, the five awardees interpreted the concepts of identity, trauma, communication and environment via their own unique visual language. However, the urgencies the artists explore in their practice are ones that have been pursued by generations of artists who came long before them. In his keynote address, Dr. Menon astutely posed the question, How is it possible to be original?
He went on to unpack notions of repetition, solipsism and the anxiety of influence. He reminded us that all art is propaganda while evoking the words of the great black sociologist WB Dubois.
Towards the end of his address he brought the audience forward to contemporary times. He questioned the meaning of society, especially a society such as one in India which filled with prejudice. He reminded us of the observation made by Dr. Ambedkar, we have equality which can be legislated by the Constitution, we have liberty that can be, you know, legislated by the Constitution. But we cannot legislate fraternity into existence, we cannot make people behave equally with one another.
The question he left is with is, how do we render the contemporary?
The events can be viewed in the video below.
