This year's edition of the India Art Fair recently ended after a week-long flurry of activity across New Delhi, including parallel showcases, workshops and the main art fair at the NSIC Exhibition Grounds in Okhla from February 6 – 9, 2025. Apart from events that proffered an experience of art catering to all, the fair continued to position itself as an incubator for conversations on South Asian art and design practices through the IAF 2025 Talks series Growing Focus, supported by JSW and organised by independent researcher and curator Shaleen Wadhwana.

The programme spotlighted conversations on "the efforts of people of the Global Majority—comprising more than 80 per cent of the world’s population, with roots in Indigenous, African, Asian and Latin American cultures—who are asserting their presence across arts and cultural ecosystems", as stated in the official release. This primary condition for 'decentring' perspectives pivoted on one question—brought up time and again in various capacities—that of access.

The first day of the programme at the art event was earmarked by the JSW Talk, The Multi-Hyphenate. Speakers included Sangita Jindal, president of Art India and chairperson of the JSW Foundation; Manuel Rabaté, director of Louvre Abu Dhabi; Emiko Usui, deputy director and chief experience officer of Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; and Kamini Sawhney, board member of CIMAM (International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art). The discussion, moderated by Dr Cleo Roberts-Komireddi, art historian and Consulting Editor - Arts at STIR, touched upon the role collaborations between institutions and philanthropic bodies play in fostering a more accessible cultural landscape.

The conversation looked at the question of engagement and the ways in which institutions can facilitate a sense of culture by promoting accessibility. This was also the primary topic of discussion for the second talk of the day, Arts Pedagogy | Curriculum for the Future. The panel offered views on how curricula can be decolonised while bridging issues of caste, class, religion, sexuality and gender. It was moderated by independent writer, educator & art critic Abhay Sardesai, who is also the director of Dr Shantilal K Somaiya School of Art with Dr Padmini Ray Murray, founder of Design Beku; Sarover Zaidi, associate professor of practice at Jindal School of Art and Architecture; Anurag Minus Verma, a writer, multimedia artist and podcaster; and Jasmine Wahi, founder & co-director of Project For Empty Space, as speakers.

The first day also gave a platform to prominent art galleries in India and the neighbouring regions with the talk Evolution of the Multi-Faceted Art Gallery in South Asia. Speakers included Abhay Maskara of Gallery Maskara, Mumbai; Richa Agarwal, chairperson of Kolkata Centre for Creativity, board member of Asia Society India Centre and CEO of Emami Art, Kolkata; Renu Modi of Gallery Espace, Delhi; and Saskia Fernando of PRSFG, Colombo. Vital topics, such as decentralised formats of exhibiting, the notion that contemporary galleries, in particular, have a responsibility to engage with wider audiences, and how galleries in the Global South can look at going beyond white box formats were touched on. “We can’t exist without cultivating an audience,” Modi emphasised. Artists Shirazeh Houshiary, Bharti Kher and Pushpamala N. addressed the lens of practitioners within the field in the BMW Art Talk, From Introspection to Impact: Artists Shaping the World, moderated by the head of cultural engagement, BMW Group, Dr Thomas Girst.

Questions of access were the prime focus of the talk that kicked off the second day of the programme. Titled Today's Global Majority, the talk brought together perspectives from independent curator, lecturer, art critic and novelist Dr Simon Njami; Sharmini Pereira, chief curator of Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Sri Lanka; Sangeeta Thapa, founder & chairperson of Kathmandu Triennale and Nancy Adajania, independent curator, cultural theorist & art critic, on how they understand the somewhat divisive term, given the ambiguity of who is included in the ‘majority’. In one of the three-day programme's most charged discussions, each speaker elaborated on their current projects in relation to the notion of a ‘global majority’.

The speakers explored questions of colonialism, the Indigenous voice and entanglements, or the ways in which the developed and so-called ‘developing’ worlds interact, as a third position disregarding majority and minority, Adajania suggested. The notion of breaking away from a dominant narrative of history formed the pivot of the talk. “You have to tell your story outside of history,” Dr Njami pointed out. Vitally, the second day also centred on stories from the grassroots.  The talk Platforming Grassroots | How Community-led Initiatives are Changing our Landscape gave the stage to Palani Kumar, photographer and curator; Mahalakshmi, photographer-artist; Mallika Das Sutar, co-founder of Chander Haat; Dr Dipti Tamang, co-founder of Confluence Collective; and Aarti Bisht, senior program officer at Henvalvani Community Radio, in a dialogue moderated by Natasha Jeyasingh, founder of Carpe Arte and co-founder of IMMERSE Fellowship. The panellists explored how organisations outside urban centres are fostering conversations around political change.

The other two talks of the day offered a more interdisciplinary viewpoint. Collaborative Approaches | Design, Technology and Craft explored design and its intersections or, in this case, conjunctions with technology and craft. Gunjan Gupta, designer, founder and creative director of Studio Wrap & IKKIS; Maria Cristina Didero, independent design curator & author; and Meneesha Kellay discussed the value of craftsmanship for contemporary design and how craft can be elevated to afford more visibility to the work of craftspeople. Patrons of Tomorrow brought together emerging cultural patrons: Nupur Dalmia, director of Ark Foundation for the Arts; Jaiveer Johal, founder of Avtar Foundation for the Arts; Samyukta Nair, co-founder & CEO of LSL Capital, London/Mumbai; and Akshita Bhanj Deo, editor-in-chief of Travel+Leisure India and South Asia, spoke about how their work aims to honour India’s cultural legacy while adapting it to a cosmopolitan future. The talk was moderated by Dr Padma Dorje Maitland, the Malavalli Family Foundation Associate Curator of Art of the Indian Subcontinent at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.

On the last day, conversations turned to questions of what cultural organisations and institutions can do to support and facilitate arts ecosystems. In Public Programming | DNA of Cultural Institutions, Rein Wolfs, director of the Stedelijk Museum, Netherlands; Chris Saines CNZM, director of QAGOMA, Australia; Dr Andrea Lissoni, artistic director of Haus der Kunst, Germany; Roobina Karode, director & chief curator of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), India; and Smriti Rajgarhia, director of Serendipity Arts Foundation, India, discussed issues of inclusivity to institutions which have thus far been gatekept. Speaking about programmes that open out these seemingly closed spaces to the public, the talk, moderated by Deepthi Sasidharan, co-founder and director of Eka Archiving, India, touched on the role of public events in fostering larger cultural conversations by involving the wider audience. For instance, Lissoni’s programme Sitzung (Meeting or Sitting) at the Munich-based museum transforms an otherwise staid public hall into a space of social encounters.

Similarly, in Museums as Incubators, Naomi Beckwith, deputy director & Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, managing trustee & director of Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai; Ferran Barenblit, independent curator, former director, MACBA and CA2M, Spain; and Azu Nwagbogu, curator and founder, African Artists’ Foundation, addressed how they’re bolstering marginalised narratives in their own institutions. The panellists raised two crucial questions: “How do we ensure narratives of the North do not remain narratives of the South?” and “What role does art have in staying connected to current developments?” For Mehta, this became a question of ‘rethinking, reframing, and renewing’ the legacy of the BDL museum, for example, by inviting Indian artists such as Jitish Kallat to offer a critique of some of the imagery in the museum, such as statues of colonial officers. For Beckwith, this took the form of thinking through the museum as a site of protest. As she mentioned in a conversation with STIR, “I truly believe that a museum is a place for voices to flourish, first off. That voice can be on multiple levels. It can be on a political level; it need not be. It can be on a social level and an ethical level; it need not be. It can simply be on an aesthetic and artistic level, and that's it. The question is, can an artist find a site where they can feel vulnerable and express what is needed to come from them and find an open audience? And this is the importance, for me, of museums.”

In Artistic Careers | Building Sustainability, the audience heard directly from artists who have seen various degrees of commercial success. The panellists, artists Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, Tarini Sethi, visual artist and designer Amrit Pal Singh and design director of Bombay Duck Designs Zeenat Kulavoor answered questions around fostering a career in the arts. The four categories, Resilience, Branding, Career Commerce and On The Spot, allowed participants to pick the brains of each panellist.

Through an engaging programme that fosters a way of thinking that looks beyond the centre, the talks programme at the 16th edition of India Art Fair brought to the forefront the idea that arts practice, pedagogy and thinking can and should be more accessible to the wider public.

India Art Fair 2025 brings an exciting programme of exhibitions, talks and public programming to New Delhi, introducing audiences to a wide range of artists and practices. Follow STIR's insightful coverage of the fair here.