Monthly series curates conversation between artists, arts writers

The four collaborators, based out of Chennai and Kolkata, have strong creative practices and between them have had permanent and temporary artworks installed at different venues ranging from Chennai’s Marina Beach to Fort Kochi in Kerala. The Hashtag#Collective is collaborating with Serendip Art to launch Voices — a year-long series of curated online talks between contemporary Indian artists and arts writers.

“Based out of Bengaluru, Serendip Art is founded by art collector Ravi Cavale. He is a huge supporter of the arts and inspiring to all of us. He takes a personal interest in the oeuvre of the artist and the growth of the art scene. While talking about how the pandemic has affected all the fields including artists, both Ravi and I felt that it was important for the voice of the artist to be heard clearly and strongly. Equally, arts writers have an enormous role to play in establishing the larger contexts and milieus where the artistic voice can be engaged with. We brainstormed about what we could do to keep the artistic dialogue going in these times and the result is Voices.

“This is a very special initiative where we are curating conversations between artists and arts writers. The artists will share their journey, as well as their thoughts and artistic processes. Each artist will have a different perspective — some might say that this is a very difficult time to create, but for some, this might be a wonderful opportunity to shut out from the world and explore. Artists and arts writers together, we believe, will synergistically create important dialogues for and about our times. Voices then become a critical historical snapshot of what artists are thinking and doing in this time, as a significant part of their overall artistic journey,” says Parvathi Nayar.

She adds that Voices is an extremely important collaborative ‘artwork’ with Ravi, and the artists and arts writers featured — where the art-medium is the generous sharing of conversation and ideas.

“The arts tend to respond to the times we live in. The digital is of course an important artistic medium and within that, the art webinar has emerged as a direct response to the lockdown. With Voices, however, we are hoping to present a thoughtful and calibrated response, and also answer the needs of the time — of hearing the artistic voice, of reaching out and communicating with each other, of supporting and building the artistic community,” the artist remarks.

The first conversation will happen on July 2 — Bengaluru-based sculptor Shanthamani M will be in conversation with arts writer Lina Vincent.