Sama: The world of contemporary art in India and Italy

MYNA is a cultural producer, curator, and the founder/Director of Engendered, a New York/New Delhi based Transnational Arts and Human rights organization with a focus on the intersections of gender/marginalities and technology in Global South. She is interested in art curation as a feminist practice, an instigation/investigation and reflection of aesthetics and visual spectacle, as means towards subversion of a hegemonic culture.

Connection with Sama

Sama is a film about contemporary art from India and Italy and it looks at resonances in both countries in a way trajectory of how old and the new seek together. Both the countries have very old tradition as well as exciting contemporary art evolutionary scene. Sama is very much about finding common ground and resonances between these two different countries that are from the east and the west. Onir doesn't come from the world of visual art, he was a very sensitive filmmaker and I have worked with him in the past. I wanted someone who was an outsider who was looking into art scene getting insula. that was the reason asking Onir to direct Sama. We produced Sama and we invited Onir to be part of a journey with us.

The representation of the LGBTQ community is getting into art scene and its popularity in India

When I came from the U.S., I started a gender and sexuality, a gallery that looked at issues of gender equality and sexuality and was a space of alternate production. First, the exhibition impact was based on gender and sexuality and looked at marginalized voices, specially people who were non-conforming of gender or had alternate sexual choices. At that point in time, I could barely get together 10 artists because most artists did not want to be pigeon-holed into queer artist label, they did not want to be labeled as artists that work on gender sexuality. However, in 2016, I did another exhibition for the American center and that was supported by almost 35 embassies. This was an exhibition called "wewe" and it was so pleasantly surprising for me to see how many artists responded to the calls of queer work. We had over 24 artists from different parts of India and all of them self identified as queer, so that was really wonderful. From 2011 to 2016 so much had changed. It was very encouraging to see that kind of openness about creative subject matter and work that dealt with gender or sexuality. From 2016 to 2022, we were working on a lot of exhibitions that would be considered in many ways sort of very macro level exhibition. While gender and sexuality has played a part in representation of my own curation, it has never been the central focus of the exhibition. until now, we decided we would also open up NFT, partnering with Boston based company called 'Abras' which is the one of the only South Asian companies that have created marketing and technology place for NFT'S in the west. it is a green platform which means that it is neutral. We are planning to do exhibition in New York city in the month of august but we are dropping the NFT collection at the end of this month, 28th June in commemoration with pride month. It is grateful to receive so many artists across not just India but Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka. The world is definitely moving towards more open expressions of creativity that also deals with issues of gender and sexuality. But I feel like the art world is still unfair and artists would not maybe fine that much in the main stream. I feel sad and I hope with this particular exhibition with the NFT would give South Asian artists a larger sort of market to beat international world and where they can communicate and display their work to not just south Asia but also to the world. we are excited about providing a platform.

The mentality of the people, when you say LGBTQ representation in art and does it have market in India in terms of art

I think people are still squeamish, incredibly conservative society and I think people want to be open but they still have to get past their own boundaries around that. I think in some part, the community really steps in and has affinity. I think art doesn't necessarily need to be pigeon-holed and I don't think any artist would like to be pigeon-holed or be scene from the lengths of queerness. However, I do think that artists should be free to create work that is personal to them and that is a manifestation of what interests them. If sexuality and gender is a big part of it then of course we should use it to create their work. Market of traditional art in terms of LGBTQ in India is definitely not there. they are barely visible. I still remember this one time when I went to see Bhupen Khakhar and he is one of India's masters in contemporary art, beautiful stunning work. his work always dealt with explicit or his own preoccupation with sexuality were kept in basement, rest of the work were sanitized and kept upstairs, which is a real shame because Bhupen is incredible and one of India's amazing masters and sold in auction as well in the west for an astounding amount of money. So, clearly, he has an international appreciation but in India, people are still very hesitant to really acknowledge his sexuality which was such a critical part of his works.

Finding a space in India, how difficult it is for the queer artists

Very hard. I mean hardly artists struggle with finding gallerists who believe in them or are comfortable with their sexuality, especially if they are alternate sexuality. To be fair, India is generally a conservative country. A lot of explicit work, straight work or queer work, will not find sort of people would be hesitant to put it up. However, with queer artists its doubly so.

On how much it has changed in the last few years

In 2010, I could barely find artists who referred to their work as that or their identities while they were putting forth work. Could barely find queer art work in 2010. in 2016, I found 24 of them and in 2022, when I put out a call for work, I found so many artists not just from India, but from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and even from a country like Iran. artists are far more confident now and not fearful of coming out of the closet and cleaning the identity as being queer, but in terms of markets of queer have increased, I don't know how much of a change there has been. Let's hope how the NFT drop does. I'm hopeful in the international world there is lot more support for queer artists so we are hoping to be able to take their work and find representation of south Asian artists in the International market.

Does it get difficult for you when it comes to representing and how did your work get started with queer artists?

I have always been very interested in issues of representation. I spent 22 years in the west and I understand as an immigrant brown woman, I understand issue of representation and I personally experienced marginalization in both subtle as well as extreme ways. I was in New York when 9/11 happened, I was brown and there was so much suspicion. I understand about being marginalized and I always wanted to have work that is placed in representation of politics, even as a woman, if you look at the proportion of women artist to men artists across the world then women artists always had to struggle to find representation and to be at the same level as a lot of their male counterparts in the same way when it comes to color and race, all the politics matter. it is important to push more equity, push more diversity and my work has always been around that. it has lend to my particular understanding of the world the way my aesthetics have been formed very strongly and acutely from there. I have had a lot of success and I felt very blessed to be able to find long term friendship, relationship with artists and if I am able to help anywhere I am very grateful for that. it has been challenging for sure. I don't think it has more challenging than any other experience I would have. we recently did an exhibition about the colonial gaze and idea was to take south Asian art and have it occupy and space and imagination in western part of the world but also be the one that shaped the representation of it. artists for me are very much about what it does to the mind and stimulates the mind. it has been very organic.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.