Future States | A Discussion on Questions of Artistic Sovereignty between Abhishek Hazra, Akansha Rastogi and Kiran Jonnalagadda | September 30, 2021

India Foundation for the Arts (IFA)
presents
Future States
A discussion between
Abhishek Hazra, Akansha Rastogi and Kiran Jonnalagadda

Thursday, September 30, 2021 | 06:00 PM – 07:30 PM | Zoom and Facebook Live

Join us for a discussion titled Future States, based on Abhishek Hazra’s speculative fiction film The Aesthetics of Nandan Flat-Formalism, on Zoom and Facebook Live. In his film, Abhishek explored the question of artistic sovereignty in the context of threats to digital privacy in the age of surveillance statecraft.

Abhishek's artwork was made as part of the 25x25 initiative by IFA in 2020, which marked 25 years of grantmaking at IFA and 25 years of Internet in India. The speculative fiction film had elements of institutional critique (including cameo roles played by the IFA staff in the video) as well as anticipations about the futures of art funding, finance capital and geopolitics. One year down the line, in the month of the IFA anniversary, it becomes special for IFA to revisit the making of the work through this discussion. At a time when state surveillance employs audacious tactics to spy on civil and political society, the discussion takes on extraordinary importance to meditate on the art institutional space and artistic autonomy in the context of digital privacy.

Click here to view the film.

Abhishek Hazra is a contemporary artist, theorist and educator.

Akansha Rastogi is Senior Curator at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.

Kiran Jonnalagadda is a social technologist and Co-founder and CTO at @hasgeek.

This session is organised as part of the Project Showcase @ IFA, a series of online presentations to showcase, discuss, and engage audiences with the diverse projects we support across programmes.

Click here to register for the discussion on Zoom.

The discussion will also be streamed live on our Facebook page - no prior registration is required to join the live streaming.

Abhishek Hazra received a grant from IFA in 2020, under the special initiative 25x25, that marked 25 years of grantmaking at IFA and 25 years of Internet in India. 25x25 was made possible with support from lead donor Kshirsagar-Apte Foundation, and philanthropy partners Titan Company Limited, and Priya Paul and Sethu Vaidyanathan.