Nancy Adajania

Nancy Adajania is a cultural theorist and film-maker, based in Bombay. She was educated in political science, social communications media, and film. She is currently Chief Editor of the visual-arts journal, »Art India«, in which role she has sought to shift the emphasis of visual-arts discourse in India from conventional art practices, and towards public art, new media and the relationship between the visual arts and political intervention.

Adajania has written and lectured on the arts, in relation to post-colonial politics and the cultural effects of globalisation. Most recently, she has presented lectures on new-media art in India and its social and political contexts, at the lothringer 13 discussion forum, Munich, (June 2002), and at the »transmediale salon«, Berlin (June 2002). Her video film, »Khichri Ek Khoj« [In Search of Khichri] (1999), weaves the documentary and meta-narrative forms to reveal the workings of a failed post-colonial welfare state, and has been screened among other venues at the »Mumbai International Film Festival« (Bombay, 2000) and in »First Story: Women Building: New Narratives for the 21st Century« (Galeria do Palacio Cristal, Porto, 2001). She was joint-convenor of the international symposium, »Capital and Karma: Conversations between India and Europe«, held at the Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna, April 2002).

In her role as a cultural organiser, she conceived and moderated a series of discussion platforms on urban culture, activism and artistic initiatives, the most recent of these being for the »Kala Ghoda Arts Festival« (Bombay, February 2002).

[2002]