Fall Curriculum (South Asian Art)
I'm excited about a life dedicated to sharing, celebrating, and making South Asian art. That's where I feel at home.
A few months ago, I realized to thrive at this intersection, I must be educated. I dream to share and celebrate things worth sharing and celebrating. I dream to have a critical eye and amplify voices that deserve to be amplified. I dream curate and be known for taste. I want a recommendation from me to mean something. That can't happen if I continue from my oblivious vantage. Frankly, right now, I have no clue what I'm talking about.
My top priority is learn context. This means the sociocultural backdrop to contemporary art (i.e., zeitgeist and how we got here). I need to develop a vocabulary for what I love and why. I need to learn who the giants are, and there are plenty of giants.
Thus began my fall semester curriculum a few weeks ago——informally, but the timelines align. I've come at it from different angles, driven by where my curiosity leads me. I've been listening to Hindi music, watching older Bollywood movies, reading books written by South Asian writers. I'm being caught up on the last 20 years I've missed, when I could have participated but I didn't because I was too busy being a young, brown Canadian with radically different priorities.
I'm appreciating the poetry in my music, the wit in my reading, the depth in this space I've neglected. I know this is an ongoing process and I can never finish "catching up", but my curriculum excites me.
Maybe I'll share the things I'm most excited about here as a form of cognitive exhaust pipe. Let's see how things evolve.
Best, Vandan