BODY SPACE TIME CONVERSATION SERIES | TUSHAR JOAG

The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art and Gati Dance Forum conducted a conversation with artist Tushar Joag as part of the Body Space Time Conversation Series on April 12, 2018 at the FICA Reading Room.


The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, in collaboration with Gati Dance Forum, featured the artist Tushar Joag as part of the Body Space Time Conversations series, which is designed to invite a range of practitioners into the studio and engage them in a discussion about performance and its intersection with other disciplines. The series is part of BODY SPACE TIME, an ongoing 4-month certificate course in dance technique and choreography, running from Jan - May 2018 at Gati Dance Forum. It populates a context for the participants of the Body Space Time course, allowing them to engage with creative processes through their own practice and a wider dialogue. It also creates a space for practitioners to share their practice with the larger public, triggering a critical discourse that links various methodologies and forms.

The series featured Tushar Joag who describes himself as a public intervention artist. He founded UNICELL, an umbrella organisation under PWC (Public Work Cells), a project for making public interventions within cityscapes to highlight issues in a satirised fashion. His work also includes performance art such as 'Riding Rocinante: From Bombay to Shanghai' (2010). 

Tushar creates these interventions in urban spaces by "designing and producing objects that while being functional and aesthetic bring into focus the various concerns of the immediate situation." His work politicises art as an extension of activism, using it as a way to address issues prevalent in society including the corruption of the judiciary, political hierarchy and disparity of wealth.

Tushar Joag (b. 1966, Mumbai) received his Bachelor’s degree from the Sir J.J. School of Arts, and in 1990, he completed his Master’s degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda. Joag was one of the co-founders of the Bombay-based artist -collective, Open Circle that sought to engage with contemporary socio-political issues via an integration of theory and practice. He has also participated in many prominent national as well as international shows. Important group exhibitions in the last year (2017) include 'Fruit of Sleep' Sursock Museum, Beirut, Sharjah Biennale act II, curated by Reem Fadda, Habit-Cohabit, Pune Biennale curated by Zasha Colah and Luca Cerriza, Cultural Hijack; The Poetics of Resistance and the Politics of Space, ARCHIP, Architectural Institute in Prague. ‘A Preview to Desolation’ curated by Premjish Acharya, Italian Cultural Center, Delhi. His solo shows include ‘Riding Rocinante from Bombay to Shanghai’ at Vadehra Art Gallery (2011) ‘Reconciliation and Truth’ (2008) at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai and ‘Willing Suspension’ (2005) at Gallery Chemould. Currently he is founding faculty and Associate Professor, Department of Art Design and Performing Art, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shiv Nadar University, Delhi.