Meet Our Newest Artivists!

Building on the success of our inaugural Artivist-in-Residence, Harbani Ahuja, we are thrilled to announce that our Artivism program has expanded. Last year, we brought on board five new Artivists-in-Residence from around the world. They come from a diversity of backgrounds, but all share a commitment to exploring the relationship between human rights advocacy and the arts.

Each artist is currently working on finishing their respective collections, to be shared publicly through exhibitions and events starting this year. Find out more about them below: 

Namita Kulkarni (India): Namita Kulkarni is a yoga teacher, writer and artist based in India. She’s been teaching yoga for the last 12 years. A gold-medallist law graduate, she also has a Post-graduate Diploma in Intellectual property rights from National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Her Artivist project aims to demonstrate how colonialism has been (and continues to be) the major cause of the climate crisis. Colonialism and the climate crisis both being rooted in ever-extractive ways of life which stand disconnected from any sense of wonder and humility before the infinite workings of the planet. Her project also explores how indigenous wisdom might bring us to our role as a custodial species with a sense of belonging to the planet rather than possessing it.

Dilpreet Bhullar (India): Dilpreet Bhullar is a writer and researcher based in New Delhi, India. With an MPhil from the University of Delhi in Comparative Literature, she has been the recipient of the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability Fellowship at Columbia University, New York. She is co-editor of the books Third Eye: Photography and Ways of Seeing and Voices and Images. Her essays on identity politics, the representation of refugees in print and digital media, and visual sociology are frequently published in leading books and journals. Currently, she is the associate editor of a theme-based journal dedicated to visual arts, published by India Habitat Centre. Dilpreet is developing the project entitled Narrative of Object and Voice of Memory. The exercise to retrace the intangible memory entwined with the tangible object is the core of the project. The etic framework of the projects offers displaced the agency to share a figment of personal memory of loss to reconcile with the past in the present with a desire of creating a promising future. Towards this end, the photo-documentation of the object – a source of emotive personal attachment – interweaves the personal histories and experiences of displacement.

Katja Phutaraksa Neef (New Zealand): Katja Phutaraksa Neef is a self-taught political artist born and raised in Thailand and grew up in Japan and Aotearoa. She has participated in field research and workshops in Fiji, Vanuatu, Thailand, Cambodia, Tanzania, Peru, Indonesia, and West Papua with a regional focus on Asia and the Pacific. Her academic research and advocacy interests include issues concerning land governance and dispossession, social inclusion, Indigenous rights, forced migration, and climate justice. Katja’s artworks explore key human rights themes surrounding Climate Justice, refugees, forced displacement, and racial justice through ostensibly innocuous mediums such as art, predominantly using mixed media, sculpture, and oil paint.

Queen (U.S.): Queen is an Artist, Facilitator & Wellness Practitioner from the indigenous Munsee Lenape lands called Brooklyn, New York. From music to meditation and more, Queen designs multi-media experiences that integrate performing & visual arts with practical healing techniques. Current work explores intergenerational dialogue as a key resource for addressing age-ism, implementing holistic healthcare & housing justice. 

Vishavjit Singh (U.S.): Vishavjit Singh is a New York City based TEDx speaker, illustrator, performance artist, storyteller, and creator of www.Sikhtoons.com. He got his spark for cartooning in the post 9/11 tragedy when Americans with turbaned and bearded countenance became targets of hate/bias crimes. For the past few years, he has been traveling across the US with his Captain America persona armed with a turban, beard, and humor to tackle fear, anxiety, bigotry, and intolerance. He uses storytelling as a tool to create a space for challenging conversations around identity, race, bias, vulnerability, and how to be agents for positive change. He hosts talks & keynotes in schools, universities, government agencies and companies including Google, Apple, NASA & Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. As an artivist and a survivor of the 1984 genocidal massacre of Sikhs in India, he is working to capture the stories of many like himself who survived this tragedy.

Stay tuned for more updates on their work as we begin to unveil their collections!