Collaborative Curation: Collectivizing Paradigms, Embracing Artistic Possibilities
Hot on the heels of our Leadership Transition Announcement, Indian Summer Festival is thrilled to announce a new collaborative curatorial model, with a team of four incredible visionaries working collaboratively with each other to program the 13th Annual Festival edition: July 6-16 2023.
Channeling the spirit of ISF and its ever curious audience, we are honoured to announce Anoushka Ratnarajah as Lead Curator, with Devyani Saltzman and Jarrett Martineau as Guest Curators for the 2023 Indian Summer Festival. Overseen by the “curator of curators,” Pawan Deol is at the helm as Executive Director of Cultural Programming.
Organizational transitions, when harnessed well, become rare moments to evolve sectoral paradigms and redefine institutional models. For this transition (read more about the ISAS Leadership Transition HERE) we are leaning into shared models and collective leadership.
This robust and visionary curator line-up offers tremendous possibility for the Festival by inviting shared ownership and representation in the festival, and ensuring distribution through South Asian artistic networks. We are thrilled about the collectivism that shared curatorial voices will bring to programming, weaving together wide networks and diverse sites of inspiration to produce a star-studded, innovative presentation of artists and ideas.
Photo of Anoushka Ratnarajah by K. Ho.
Recently the Artistic Director at Out On Screen, which produces the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Anoushka has been a fellow with The Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics and Voices of Our Nation Arts. She has a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and an MA in Arts Politics from NYU. As a curator, Anoushka is invested in creating and supporting work that shines a light on histories and contemporary stories that are underrepresented in mainstream theatre, film and performance, and in collaborating and creating work with other women, artists of colour and QTBIPOC artists.
Read more about Anoushka HERE.
Designing the Indian Summer Festival experience is nuanced and ambitious. Visionary curation is researched yet intuitive, celebratory yet critical, unexpected but with a finger decidedly on the pulse of the moment. Through a combination of curiosity, and expertise, the curator triangulates the artist’s vision, the context of the artwork, and the audience’s interests all within the context of organizational values and the festival theme (stay tuned for festival theme announcement soon!). Curation requires an understanding of many different artistic traditions as well as an eye for detail in order to create an engaging experience for all attendees.
Devyani Saltzman was recently Director of Public Programming at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), the fourth largest museum in North America, and previously the Director of Literary Arts at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, as well as a founding Curator at Luminato, North America’s preeminent multi arts festival.
Photo of Devyani Saltzman by Liat Aharoni
Jarrett Martineau is Curator in Residence at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts and host of CBC’s Reclaimed. He holds a Ph.D. in Indigenous Governance from the University of Victoria, and has been a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Columbia in New York. Jarrett is a long time beloved and trusted Guest Curator with Indian Summer Festival, returning as Guest Curator for ISF2023.
Photo of Jarrett Martineau by Jalani Morgan
Please drop us a line on [email protected] to join us in welcoming them – We are so excited to see what these eclectic, captivating minds bring to life at ISF2023!
