TRUSTEES
Roshini Vadehra
Roshini Vadehra is the Director of Vadehra Art Gallery. She has a B.A. in Business Administration from Boston Unviersity. Roshini successfully facilitated the opening of Vadehra’s second gallery space in 2005 which has held important exhibitions by contemporary artists such as Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya, Shilpa Gupta, Nalini Malani, Arpita Singh, and many others. She also set up the Foundation for India Contemporary Art, a non-profit organization that aims to broaden the audience for contemporary Indian art and to establish a dialogue between the arts and the public through education and active participation in public art projects and funding. She has been a patron to the Rubens Museum and the Guggenheim museum in New York, and the Serpentine Gallery in London. She is also a contributing editor to Architectural Digest, India, and is on the advisory board of the Sushant School of Design. She is a member of the CII Task Force for arts and culture in India
Parul Vadehra
Parul Vadehra graduated from Boston University's College of Communication in 2003 with a Bachelor of Science in Communication, majoring in Public Relations and specialising in Women’s Studies, and went on to work at prestigious public relations and communication firms in Boston and New Delhi. In 2007, she joined Vadehra Art Gallery, one of the oldest and most well-respected art galleries in India representing a roster of artists spanning over four generations. As co-director, she is involved in the management and programming of the gallery's spaces in New Delhi and developing and and enhancing its virtual presence. She is also a Trustee of the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), a non-profit that that aims to broaden the audience for contemporary Indian art, enhance opportunities for artists, and establish a continuous dialogue between the arts and the public through education and active participation in public art projects and funding. As trustee, her role includes facilitating collaborations for the foundation with institutions as well as developing patrons to support the programming in India. Through her work at Vadehra Art Gallery and FICA, Parul has been a patron and supported various contemporary art projects in India and abroad including Indian art exhibitions at the Asia Society, Serpentine Gallery and Guggenheim Museum. She lives in New Delhi, India.
THE FICA TEAM
Vidya Shivadas | Director
Vidya Shivadas is a curator based in New Delhi. She completed her Masters in Art Criticism from Faculty of Fine Arts, M S University, Vadodara in 2000. She worked for more than a decade at the Vadehra Art Gallery before taking on the role of FICA Director in 2011. She has curated a number of exhibitions at the Vadehra Art Gallery since 2002 as well as guest curated exhibitions at Devi Art Foundation, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Edinburgh Art Festival and Serendipity Arts Festival. In 2007, she was invited to participate in the educational programming for Documenta 12 from May to September 2007 in Kassel, Germany. In 2009, she received the Asian Art Archive’s Research Grant for her research on the development of art critics in India from post-independence period to the present day. In 2018 she participated in a curatorial residency programme offered by the Kunstsammlung NRW, Dusseldorf in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut.
Shivadas is Visiting Faculty at School of Culture and Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University Delhi since 2013 as well as faculty for the Post Graduate Diploma in Modern & Contemporary Indian Art & Curatorial Studies at Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai between 2013 and 2017.
Annalisa Mansukhani | Programmes Manager
Annalisa Mansukhani is a writer, researcher and curator studying histories of photography and notions of the image in contemporary art and curatorial practices. She has previously worked at the Kochi Biennale Foundation, and is one of the recipients of the first Critical Collective-PhotoSouthAsia Young Writers Award for lens-based practices. Annalisa is a contributing writer for ASAP | art where she dissects possibilities of the photographic in contemporary inter-media practices. As the Programmes Manager for the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) in Delhi, she establishes frameworks and activates resources around art and research, spaces of exhibition, critical writing, editorial and public programming. She is currently fascinated by narrative forms, vocabularies of memory and trauma, and the poetic as a sensibility across mediums in art. She lives and works in New Delhi, India.
Mahender Kumar | Reading Room Coordinator
Mahender has previously worked as a Computer Operator in Full Circle Publishing Pvt. Ltd. as well as an Assistant Manager of Sales in the Vadehra Art Gallery Bookstore. Mahender took care of the FICA Reading Room in its earlier location at Defence Colony and continues to manage the daily operations in the current space in Lado Sarai besides cataloguing new entries and assisting readers.
Ishwari Arambam | Project Coordinator,
The Himalayan Fellowship for Creative Practitioners
Ishwari Arambam is a researcher and facilitator from Imphal, Manipur. She has previously worked with the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2018–19) as an art mediator. She contributed to the 1st edition of the Kigali Photo Fest, Rwanda in 2019 by assisting the curator and the director. As Programmes Coordinator, and Our Shared Cultural Heritage (OSCH) Fellow at the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru, she conceptualised and executed public programmes for the museum, and also built and fostered a youth collective.
The Northeastern region of India has been continuously exemplified as a geography plagued by conflict, steeped in the exigencies of revolution and insurgency for the last sixty years. More recently, the region has seen a proliferation of experimental forms to present its concerns, issues, anxieties, and hopes. She hopes to be a voice that contributes to this experience through research and writing. She currently works as Project Coordinator for The Himalayan Fellowship for Creative Practitioners at FICA where she hopes to amplify artistic practices, voices and projects from the region.
Alka Singh | Coordinator, Programmes & Communications
Alka Singh is a Delhi-based professional in media and cultural studies known for her enthusiasm for a wide range of disciplines. She holds a master's degree from the School of Media and Cultural Studies at TISS, where she delved into various areas, including documentary filmmaking, journalism, cyberculture, and web design. Her academic journey at TISS resulted in the creation of two documentary films, 'Exit Plant (2020)' and 'Labour of Love (2022).' Additionally, her master's studies led her to explore the intricate relationship between health and society, culminating in her notable paper, 'Theorizing PCOS: A Medical and Social Construct,' a work rooted in autoethnography and ethnography. Beyond her academic pursuits, Alka enjoys nurturing her plant collection, engaging in lively table tennis matches, and embarking on photo walks to capture the world through her lens. As the Coordinator (Programmes and Communications), she works to develop documentation and publicity for the annual programming, while also overseeing archiving and video editing processes, and social media management, geared towards enhancing the accessibility of the reading room's resources for the public.
alka@ficart.org
Annie Lisa | Project Administrator
Annie Lisa has worked in diverse sectors with significant proficiency in report making and documentation work. She attended Mount Carmel College to complete her bachelor’s degree in political science and sociology. She worked as an intern for Janaagraha under two civic based Programs. Her career path has taken her to work as a Visa Support Officer for the British High Commission and as an Analyst for Quality Council of India (QCI) on national-level initiatives. She has experience managing and supervising stakeholders and has undertaken both primary and secondary research working on the projects. Based on the assessment and findings of the fieldwork, she authored multiple state reports for QCI. Annie has a strong enthusiasm for creating and managing procedures, recognizing hazards, and generating records and analyses. She is in charge of the administrative responsibilities for the projects and programs at FICA as the Project Administrator. She envisions streamlining the project processes, enhancing stakeholder participation, accelerating project procedures, and carefully planning and preparing project deliverables and resources.