ARPITA AKHANDA (b.1992)
Arpita Akhanda, born (1992) and brought up in a family of artists who migrated from Bangladesh during the partition and moved through many locations in India before settling in Cuttack, Odisha, she completed her B.F.A & M.F.A in painting from Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University, 2015 & 2017.
An Interdisciplinary artist, Akhanda works across mediums that include paper weavings, photography, performance, installation, drawing, and video. Working with a wide range of artistic mediums and disciplines, from painting and weaving to performance, Akhanda’s works reveal a subtle, wider connection to cultural politics, memory and history. Growing up, listening to her grandparent’s traumatic relocation following the partition profoundly impacted the artist’s mind. According to her, the body is a carrier of memories through which her practice emerges out of the need for their decolonization. Thus migration has been a recurring theme for Akhanda, exploring the lost path of remembrance, narrating the sense of loss the body inherits from a bygone trauma.
Akhanda has conducted several talks, presentations, workshops, screenings including the live performance and talk at K21, Dusseldorf, Germany as part of the monthly public program ‘K21 Encounters’; screening of The Living Scar as part of the Transitions, Special program: selected works from the Jan van Eyck Academie Lumière 4 (Lumière Cinéma, Maastricht), NL; Understanding Body as Home, Talk and Workshop at Central Saint Martin as part of Subcontinent Divided Bringing communities together, A critical reflection on Independence 75 years project led by steering group at University of the Arts London (UAL), UK; Memory collector, Talk and Workshop as a part of Skillz Week in the Illustration programme at Camberwell College of Arts, UK; The Living Scar & The last leap screened at Young Collectors Hub at Bikaner House, as a part of India Art Fair (IFA), Delhi.
Akhanda has performed in various international art spaces, including The Prince Claus Fund Biennial Symposium 2023, Sri Lanka; K21, Dusseldorf, Germany; Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2023; Transitory Body: The Memory Collector at the opening ceremony of group exhibition Rivers and Roads: Meandering Stories of India, Curated by Valeria Contarino, Pranitha Joseph and Zhu Yaning at AAIE Center for Contemporary Art, Rome (2022 – 23), 360 minutes of requiem at India Art Fair 2022, New Delhi; Transitory Body: the memory collector at Piramal Art Residency 2019-20, Maharashtra; Between the living and the dead at Teertha International Performance Platform 2019, Sri Lanka; and Moving with the senses in her solo show at JANUS centre for visual and performing art 2018, Kolkata; and Creating to destroying at 3rd Multidisciplinary Art show 2017, curated by Chhatrapati Dutta, Chittagong, Bangladesh. Additionally, some of her notable exhibition credits include Art Dusseldorf 2023; India Art Fair 2023; Rivers and Roads: Meandering Stories of India, Curated by Valeria Contarino, Pranitha Joseph and Zhu Yaning at AAIE Center for Contemporary Art, Rome (2022 – 23); AD Design show 2022 in Mumbai, Hub India, Artissima Contemporary Art at Torino, Italy, curated by Myna Mukherjee and Davide Quadrio, represented by Emami Art in 2021; Körper: The memory collector, Kunstraum Aarau, Switzerland; Of Liminal Beings and other spaces, curated by Ushmita Sahu, Emami Art gallery, Kolkata; The Trifecta of Movement at Exhibit 320, New Delhi; The Lay of the Land, Exhibit320, New Delhi.
Akhanda is a recipient of the 2022-23- Prince Claus Seed Fund. She is also selected for Jan Van Eyck Residency 2022-23, Netherlands; and was part of India Art Fair Artist in Residence program 2022, New Delhi; Artist in Residence program 2021 Gästeatelier Krone, Aarau, Switzerland in association with Khoj Kolkata; and Piramal Art Residency 2019-20, Mumbai.
Arpita Akhanda is a recipient of Inlaks Fine Art Award 2022, Emerging Artist Award 2020 extended support platform from FICA and Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation 2021, State Award Fellowship in New Media from Prafulla Dahanukar Art Foundation, 2019 and is also a recipient of National Scholarship by CCRT Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India in Painting, 2016.
Some of her works belong to major museums, private collections and art foundations, including Museum Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K21, Piramal Foundation and Emami Group.
She is currently based in Santiniketan, India.