Events — Home Sweet Home

Karnataka Kalamela, Exhibition

Chinar Shah in collaboration with Ravikumar Kashi

India Foundation for the Arts organized The Project 560 Festival at 1 Shanthiroad Studio/Gallery, Bangalore.

Dates: 13.09.2025 to 21.09.2025

When I began mapping self-organized initiatives in the arts in Bangalore, I quickly realized that my limited knowledge of Kannada posed one of the greatest barriers to understanding the nuances of these histories. At that point, I reached out to Ravikumar Kashi, inviting him to write on a subject that could move beyond my restricted perspective of Karnataka’s self-organized art scene. Ravi suggested focusing on the Kalamela—an artist-led fair of which I knew almost nothing.

Ravi opened his library to me, where I encountered nearly all the catalogues (or “souvenirs,” as they were called) of the Kalamelas, along with a wide range of printed material that had emerged from Bangalore in the late 20th century. Home Sweet Home Studio digitized this archive, and Ravi’s essay became an entry point for revisiting the Kalamelas in our present moment. He also activated his network to extend the archive, with major contributions from C. Chandrashekhara’s meticulously filed and handwritten documentation of the Kalamela. Additional archival materials came from G. S. Shenoy, G. Y. Hublikar, Ramesh Rao, Chi Su Krishna Shetty, Marishamachar, Veeresh Rudraswamy, A. M. Prakash, and Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath. A. L. Narasimhan, a noted historian, had earlier digitized some of these materials with Ravi’s help—an effort that proved invaluable to our archiving process.

In thinking about the exhibition, it became clear that the archive also needed to be activated in other ways. Ravi proposed bringing together people who had been closely associated with the Kalamela for a roundtable conversation, allowing them to share memories and reflections. This closed-door meeting, hosted at 1 Shanthiroad Studio/Gallery by Suresh Jayaram, was recorded, adding an important layer of oral narratives to complement the archival materials.

Much of this material had never been translated into English or contextualized within broader discussions of art and culture. As a result, many important figures have remained under-recognized in wider scholarly and curatorial conversations. To address this, all the editorials from the Kalamela catalogues have been generously translated by H. A. Anil Kumar.

Tracing the History of Independent Initiatives in the Arts in Bangalore, Presentation

Organized by India Foundation for the Arts

Cultivating Independent Spaces in India: Home Sweet Home & Reliable Copy, Panel discussion

ASAP (Art South Asia Project) Art Murmur hosted the panel discussion with Chinar Shah, Founder of Home Sweet Home, and Nihaal Faizal and Sarasija Subramanian, Co-Founders of Reliable Copy, moderated by ASAP’s Head of Programs, Mala Yamey.

Beyond Theory: Mapping Feminist Practices in the Contemporary, Conference

A conversation with Avni Sethi, Chinar Shah and Meenakshi Thirukode moderated by Shukla Sawant, discussed their positionalities on dealing with the existing infrastructures in the art world.

New Spaces, New Visions: Alternative Approaches to Art Engagement, Panel Discussion

Organized by Museum of Art and Photography, Bangalore

Anshika Varma, Avni Sethi, Chinar Shah, moderated by Arundhati Ghosh