Art Bites #3 Hena Kapadia // TARQ in conversation with Parag Tandel and Rajyashri Goody

Welcome to the 3rd edition of Art Bites where we serve you the hottest contemporary artists and designers, a volonté. Hena Kapadia, Founder of TARQ, will be hosting our online session in conversation with Parag Tandel and Rajyashri Goody.

Both Parag and Rajyashri work with recipes, Parag works to document recipes from his Koli Community, while Rajyashri explores the politics of the written word, cookbooks, and access to ample food resources in the context of Dalit communities in India.

About the artists

Parag Tandel's public art projects include Tandel Fund of Archives, pop-up museum of fisherfolk, Mumbai (2020 & 2019); (En)counters- Daily Rations Public art project, curated by Artoxygen, Breathing art works, Mumbai (2017); Geographies of consumptions, Mumbai (2015); Big Catch, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Mumbai (2012); and Sandarbh, Rajasthan (2011).

Tandel has been a recipient of the Jhunjhunwala Scholarship Award (2003); Maharashtra State Art Award (2003); and All India Art and Craft Society State Award (2003). Additionally, he has participated in residencies at the Banboo Curtain Studio, Taiwan (2018) Piramal Art Residency (2017), Space 118 (2015), Mumbai and in Partapur, Rajasthan. He currently lives and works in Thane, Mumbai.

Rajyashri's art practice is informed by her background in the social sciences, as well as her Dalit roots. Through the use of various mediums, including writing, ceramics, photography, and installation, she attempts to decode and make visible instances of everyday power and resistance within Dalit communities in India. She has been developing a body of work around narratives of food, eating, and hunger in the Dalit experience, and its relationship with the act of writing and photo documentation.

Rajyashri’s work has been exhibited in group shows across India, the UK, and the USA, and she has developed her practice through art residencies and fellowships in India, Taiwan, South Korea, the Netherlands, and the USA. In 2018, she was awarded the Emerging Artist of the Year by India Today Art Awards.