‘Kolkata has the best audience for exhibitions’

At Experimenter, co-founders Priyanka and Prateek Raja have redrawn the map of contemporary Indian art since 2009. Their enviable roster with sharp curatorial intent and impactful conversations, has placed them on art’s most coveted lists.

CT spoke to the power couple about Kolkata’s layered cultural pulse and how we engage with art in an era of reels.Experimenter has been a gamechanger in the landscape of art and culture. How has the journey evolved over the years?Priyanka: We’ve always thought of Experimenter as having an organic character that finds a natural way to grow and respond to its environment. In fact, one of the key ideas behind it is to offer a mirror to the world we are surrounded by.

As a result, our way of working or seeing is a self-organised system that is entirely unique to us; there’s no precedent in our industry for the way we operate. Prateek: Often when asked to describe ourselves as an organisation, we give the example of an octopus, which has a central nervous system but many arms – all equally capable and intelligent and simultaneously working towards a common objective. As a gallery, one of our main objectives has been to bring the most forward-thinking and discursive exhibitions and visual arts programmes that are unbound and rooted in learning, fearlessness, dissent.

Priyanka: Over the years, we’ve brought to our four spaces across Kolkata and Mumbai exhibitions that have questioned many of the tenets we hold sacrosanct and have asked uncomfortable but respectful questions to create a crucible of productive thinking and new possibilities. In this age of social media, do you think audiences still have the capacity to meaningfully engage with and respond to art?Prateek: Absolutely! Experiencing art is a feeling, and confronting art in person is one of the purest, unbound, and transformative experiences we can have.

With art, one feels something personal and tactile; visitors at our galleries feel increasingly moved when interacting with art, especially contemporary art, which confronts, questions and makes the viewer introspect. Priyanka: Our role in enabling our exhibitions to be seen in person and being able to share the same feeling with viewers motivates us.

What do you think has most shaped and nurtured your taste and sensibilities over the years?Prateek: Both of us come from families that have always held aesthetics and culture at their centre.

Which is why we’re able to look beyond the binaries that seem to be prevalent today. We feel that growing up in an environment that has always been respectful and understanding of the multiplicities of our world, the kaleidoscopic possibilities of seeing our surroundings, and accepting of the multiple mediums of expression that our society is inherently built on, makes our ways of thinking open to change.

Priyanka: Along with our team, we’ve been able to build a space of free expression that’s fearless and built on productive debate, one that celebrates collaborative working, strength of co-thinking, and inclusive diversity. Kolkata and Bengal are highly fertile grounds for creative endeavours and, in our opinion, the only place for intense, free-spirited work, where dissent, dialogue and debate are a way of life – Prateek RajaWe continue the same journey we embarked on 17 years ago, only now, our artists show breakthrough projects at some of the most important exhibitions and museums in the world. It has been an exciting and highly rewarding journey – Priyanka RajaKolkata’s influence on their journeyAccording to Priyanka, Kolkata and Bengal have had a profound impact on their way of thinking.

“Bengal is a deltaic land through which many ideas, thoughts and fundamental concepts flow – ideas that are central to our thinking. We have the great privilege to work and live in this incredible city,” she says. Prateek adds, “Kolkata’s multiculturalism allows for a wide audience and a diverse interpretation of the work we do.

Here, visitors can seamlessly cross-reference between literature, music, politics, philosophy and history. It’s by far the best audience in the country to make exhibitions for, although we may undeniably be slightly biased by our love for Kolkata and Bengal. It comes with its own challenges, though, mostly psychological in the minds of others; many of those preconceived borders we have shattered, and many still need to be fundamentally resolved,” he says.Pics: Anindya Saha