Team

Nicola Antaki, a British architect, is a Royal College of Art and UCL Bartlett School of Architecture graduate. She has worked on projects ranging from designing exhibitions at the Tate Britain (Rude Britannia 2010) and the National Gallery (Delaroche 2010) to designing schools and nurseries in London and the South East of England.  Nicola moved to Mumbai in 2011 and currently combines social and architectural research and practice, working on learning spaces for under-privileged children in the city whilst completing her PhD with the Development Planning Unit and the School of Architecture at the Bartlett, UCL.  Her passion for photography stems from her interest in Art and the City; a key driver for the FOCUS Festival is to bring more art and photography into the public city realm.  In her spare time, Nicola also collaborates regularly with organisation Fresh & Local to design community urban farming projects that activate unused spaces across Mumbai.

The Curator, Call For Entries exhibition 2017:
Prajna Desai is an art historian who lives and works in Mumbai​. She has previously written on contemporary photography in conjunction with her involvement as a curator and writer of contemporary art. She is currently working on three research essays focused on photography, to potentially develop exhibitions based on this research. Experimental practices and narrative fictions in post-3.11 photography in Japan against the backdrop of anti-nuke protests and economic. The 1960s industrial photography of Sunil Janah, a left-leaning Indian photographer who previously made his reputation with searing photographs of the Bengal famine (1942-44). And the conceptual and formal nexus between photo magazines, wartime sensoga painting, and manga in Japan during WWII.

Sairandhri Raut, Programmes Coordinator
Sair has worked in public facing, research and curatorial roles at various art organisations and galleries including the David Roberts Art Foundation and the Natural History Museum in London and the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai. Sair holds a Master’s degree in History of Art from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her research interests include photography, film, performance and new media art, contemporary visual culture of a developing city and politics of contemporary art.

Michael Cutts, Education Curator
Since moving to India in 2012, Michael has been working with NGOs, governments, museums and schools using his background in learning and education for sustainable development. He has designed curriculum in schools with science and socio-emotional departments and organised many art-based projects to benefit both students and artists. This includes FOCUS 2015’s My Family Portrait: Crossovers in Space, Time and Culture with photographer Vivek Prakash and students from the education NGO, Muktangan. This year FOCUS on Learning has grown to include more schools and more narratives from Mumbai’s youth using photography as a way to experience their city through a personal lens.

Shabnam Lilani, Production Coordinator
Shabnam is a freelance arts producer and curator with a keen interest in the digital space. She has extensive experience working in the arts and media industry, and is the founder of the www.theartplace.in, an online gallery showcasing the works of young artists. Shabnam was instrumental in producing the 2014 Dhaka Art Summit and the ArtC public program in Chennai. She was the assistant curator to the Artistic Director at the 2016 Dhaka Art Summit. In addition to her role at AAP, she works at the CONA Foundation.

Agnes Vergne Sen Gupta, Production Coordinator

Sophie Wright, Content Producer

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FOCUS 2015 Team

Pa Madhavan, Curator, Call For Entries exhibition 2015

The Executive Director of the Goa Centre for Alternative Photography (Goa-CAP), founder of the Wanted Series and advisor to the CSMVS Museum, is one of the lead curators for FOCUS.  A firm believer of Gandhian principles, Madhavan started working as a documentary photographer, travelling around India documenting the mining industry and its intrusion in the environment, as well as tribal lives and their culture. After receiving a research grant from the Indian Foundations for the Arts, he pursued a research project on Daguerreotype and Alternative Photography, subsequently studying photography in Paris and Peru. He has also worked as an intern at the Museum of Photography, Berlin. Pa Madhavan has served as a consultant with Plan International, Save the Children, Christian Children Fund, and DFID for photography. He presently dedicates his entire time to Goa-CAP undertaking research, curating shows and promoting alternative photography in South Asia. He has won many fellowships for his work including a Media fellowship from the Center for Science and Environment, Photojournalist fellowship from the National Foundation for India, the Extending Arts Practice research grant from the Indian Foundation for the Arts and The ARThinkSouthAsia Fellowship in Arts Management.

Francesca Mazzi, Intern

Sairandhri Raut, Programmes Coordinator

Genevieve Vanspall, Programmes Assistant

Sophie Wright, Content Producer

Agnès Vergne, Logistics

Mulchand Dedhi & Aditi Abhay, Social Media

Di Jackson, Media and PR

Volunteers: Abhipsa Das, Dhwanil Kapasi, Digesh Bhatt, Dorothée Dori, Milind Mane, Marsha Silgardo, Manisha Solanki, Prashant Waydande, Reema Shah, Riddhi Patel, Rounak Modha, Sagar Patil, Sameer Saksena, Shweta Patil, Vanisa Upadhyay and Zoe Farooque