NOW ON was conceived as a call that welcomed ideas, thoughts and experiments that responded to the current crisis and its impact on our core work of promoting arts and international arts exchange.

Already underway, Anshika Varma’s “Guftgu Talk Series” aims to create programs and publishing experiments that lead to discussions around photography and photo books. These monthly live interactive video conversations will later lead to an annual publication in print and virtual form as a “book” with individual zines showcasing the work of independent practitioners.

Through “Virtual Segments,” Anubhav Syal of Round Them Oranges proposes a web-based environment that allows its members to create virtual art galleries in life-like 3D spaces. Here artists and organisations can design realistic spaces in which to hold virtual exhibitions.

Aqui Thami’s “Sister Radio” began with the intention to share healing in community in these difficult times. Through the voices of creative women, away from dominant narratives, Sister Radio creates a space to share, listen and (un)learn. Through interviews and discussions in the form of podcasts, this intimate heartfelt space will help listeners learn how to be a sister supporter and celebrate women.

By leveraging the possibilities of the digital medium and combining it with the expertise in contemporary dance, Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts aims to herald a new era with “Spaarkk”. An online creative platform, “Spaarkk” aims to stimulate new ideas and initiatives with a focus on contemporary dance/movement arts while also being open to other disciplines  With a vision of live or online events and at times hybrid one blending both Spaarkk would envisage performances, interventions, gatherings, events, training, sharing of skills, residencies and discourses.

Through “Idee fixe: anticipating craft futures”, Dhruv Saxena and Praveen Sinha set out to explore radically new modalities in the scenario of design and crafts practices in India. Envisaging what alternative identities that crafts and crafts practitioners might attain, this project imagines provocative future(s) for the crafts industry in the form of text, visuals and artefacts.

“Curatorial Collaboration as Method” brings together practitioners of the Ke ba kahara curatorial collective in a new collaborative territory and method in South Asia. Ke ba kahara members include Omar Chowdhury, Samiul Sabbir Islam, Khaled Mahmud, Sadia Rahman, Nabil Shahidi. Combining practices across filmmaking, print, architecture, anthropology, photography, the collective curates a five-month curatorial programme of exhibitions, publications and seminars set in a modernist architectural site in Dhaka, centred on Bangladesh’s past, present and future. The model presents a hybrid future of online and physical space interacting to experience art.

Tejas Pande’s “WhatsApp-Free University” is an interactive project that encourages engagement with one’s cognitive biases with respect to social media use through short video forwards. By analysing and producing content for WhatsApp groups in Tier 2 and tier-3 cities in Mahrashtra, Tejas intends for members of group and beyond to reflect on one’s own biases.

“Instigating Collaborative Study” takes as its departure point ‘The Packet’, a zine archive and practice traversing texts, discussions, workshops and residencies – from which the Sri Lankan collective derives its name. Working with over 8 artists – including Sandev Handy, Abdul Halik Azeez, Imaad Majeed, Cassie Machado, Venuri Perera, Ephraim Shadrach, P. Pushpakanthan and Dinelka Liyanage – this collaborative practice begins with a broad topic to allow for a collective focus and process to emerge.

Watch out for more details on the above projects in the coming months!