Southern spice in arts

Roaming in and around the picturesque locales in London, artist Dr Avani Rao Gandra from Hyderabad admits that “work is not work any more” for her. One among the 15 from all over Asia, Avani has been selected for the Arts Think South Asia fellowship, which is jointly sponsored by Goethe Zentrum and British Council. As part of the all expense paid fellowship, Avani — who is also the only person to be chosen from Hyderabad — will be residing in London for a month and will be working on projects and attending various programmes related to art.

Fellows are selected to “help develop skills, knowledge, networks and experience of potential leaders” in their chosen cultural field. As part of her stay, she will be working with The National Gallery (London), Engage, an organisation representing galleries and art professionals in the UK, Orleans House (Greater London) and John Hansard Art Gallery (Hampshire). “The learning and sharing so far has been  an incredible experience — shadowing the directors, attending workshops and conferences and having access to unrestricted resources in the form of archives, art collections, meeting with curators, marketing, funding, administrative professionals etc,” admits Avani.

Of the activities she has been of part of so far, she says, “I have attended a workshop on ‘audience building for contemporary art’ and a seminar on ‘taking art into public spaces’. I also had the opportunity to give presentations on the success of Kochi-Muziris Biennale and the role played by Iconart gallery in recognising and promoting young artists.” She is also looking forward to the Annual Engage conference in Manchester where all the heads of museums and galleries from the UK will meet.

One of the important projects as part of her fellowship is to bring more value and exposure to the legacy of Sir Ratan Tata (1818–1871) who was an avid collector of art and a philanthropist. He was fascinated with India and during his travels to the country, he collected paintings, manuscripts, carpets etc., which he later gave to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSVS), Mumbai.

“The Orleans House is planning a major art event in 2017 to coincide with India’s 70th Independence and I am supposed  to build a connect with the collections at The York House in England and CSVS in museum in Mumbai,” she says.