Curatorial Note

The arts enable us to ask questions of our pasts, investigate the present, and imagine possible collective futures. The Arts Practice programme at India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) over the past five years have supported artists engaged in critical practices in the arts to challenge, disrupt and build the many worlds we inhabit in space and time. At this festival celebrating their work, we bring together 40 projects across disciplines such as photography, visual arts, theatre, film, augmented reality, gaming, graphic art, sound, music, dance, and puppetry. Through panel discussions, performances, film screenings, exhibitions and workshops, we hope to make 'Present' in PAST FORWARD' the riveting explorations of over 80 artists across disciplines from all over the country. Their provocations will be presented under the themes of interrogating pasts, engaging communities, thinking audiences, confluence of forms, making meanings of myths and imagining futures.

INTERROGATING PASTS
The past is at once a legacy to treasure and a burden to bear. It is sometimes obstinate, sedimented and at others, free flowing in the way it shapes our present and future. In different ways, notions of the past have gripped the artist’s mind and informed her practice. The projects showcased here point to the multiple ways in which artists have conversed with the past. While finding inspiration, artists have also challenged, rejected, questioned, critiqued, reinterpreted and departed from the pasts.

Panel Discussion: Padmini Chettur, Pushpamala N, Sarbajit Sen, Sharanya Ramprakash, Susnato Chowdhury
Jonathan Barlow (Moderator)
Exhibition: Lakshmi Subramanian (CSSSC), Sarbajit Sen
Performance: Abhishek Majumdar, Shruthi Vishwanath
Film Screening: Wanphrang Diengdoh

CONFLUENCE OF FORMS
Art forms have always existed and thrived in each other's company. They have evolved through mutual influence and nurturing. Artists working in specific art forms often engage in others to challenge themselves, make experiments, learn new skills or get inspired with unusual possibilities of outcomes. The projects showcased under this theme were in part born out of the desire to see the results of two or more forms in conversation with each other. While some of these projects borrow and build through their respective techniques and methodologies, others provoke new ways of looking at making work.

Panel Discussion: Barun Chattopadhyay, Jyoti Dogra, Madhuja Mukherjee, Umashankar Mantravadi
Justin McCarthy (Moderator)
Exhibition: Dhruv Jani
Performance: Jyoti Dogra
Film Screening: Anitha Balachandran, Avik Mukhopadhayay, Prantik Basu
Workshop: Preethi Athreya

ENGAGING COMMUNITIES
Arts forms have always existed and thrived in each other's company. They have evolved through mutual influence and nurturing. Artists working in specific arts forms thus often engage in others to challenge themselves, make experiments, learn new skills or get inspired with unusual possibilities of outcomes. The projects showcased under this theme were in part born out of the desire to see the results of two or more forms are in conversation with each other. While some of these projects borrow and build through their respective techniques and methodologies, others provoke new ways of looking at making work.

Panel Discussion: Alakananda Nag, Ekta Mittal, Soumya Sankar Bose, Sumona Chakravarthy
Sumana Chandrashekar (Moderator)
Exhibition: Alakananda Nag, Soumya Sankar Bose
Performance: Ronidkumar Chingangbam (Akhu)

MAKING MEANINGS OF MYTHS
Myths have played a significant role in helping humanity interpret their lives, understand their experiences and make meaning of their existence. They connect quotidian lived realities to the larger concepts of power and truth. Artists have always used and borrowed from myths to make works that attempt to extend beyond the immediate struggles of living, to seek broader questions of life. The projects showcased under this theme represent some of these attempts. While some of the projects relook at myths of the past, others consider the possibility of constructing new ones.

Panel Discussion: Deepika Arwind, George Mathen (Appupen), Ranjini Krishnan, S Murugaboopathy, Shena Gamat
Gitanjali Rao (Moderator)
Exhibition: Ranjini Krishnan
Performance: Shena Gamat

THINKING AUDIENCES
Far from being passive consumers, the audiences have always played a powerful role in shaping the trajectory of arts practices. They have encouraged practitioners to chart new paths, discover new content and find new ways of communicating it to the larger world. Practitioners too, on their part, have tried in many ways to break boundaries with their audiences and make them integral to their work. Some of the projects showcased here have attempted to build new audiences, enabled wider public access to their work and embraced audiences as active participants in their work.

Panel Discussion: Bassu Khan, Bikram Ghosh, Deepa Rajkumar, Mandeep Singh Raikhy, Rajkumar Rajak
Neelam Man Singh (Moderator)
Exhibition: Abul Kalam Azad
Performance: Bikram Ghosh
Workshop: Mandeep Singh Raikhy

IMAGINING FUTURES
The human race today finds itself irrevocably trapped between two conflicting emotions about its future - the anxiety and fear of slowly destroying this planet; the hope and desire that a better world is possible. Artists have always been at the forefront of imagining the diverse possibilities that our futures can bring upon us. The projects showcased under this theme bring together some of the ways in which they envisage, project and frame our imminent destinies. While some of the projects raise questions about our nature of occupying the planet, others explore new ways of experiencing and learning about the arts and its connection to life.

Panel Discussion: Anurupa Roy, Pallavi Paul, Rajiv Krishnan, Ranjana Pandey, Sahej Rahal
Sanjay Kak (Moderator)
Performance: Kavish Seth
Film Screening: Pallavi Paul and Sahej Rahal