Pedagogy and Practice: Vidya Shivadas on Extending Dialogues Surrounding Contemporary Art

Recorded on 13 September 2021.

Moving beyond art as practice takes us to a space where art is seen as a resource—a tool to think through our times. This idea shatters the image of the art world as an isolated field of work and study, instead making it an integral part of everyone’s lives.

“There is the question of art education, and then of art in education and how art could help us learn better,” says Vidya Shivadas, director of the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA). FICA was set up to think through questions of knowledge production and what it means to do research. Their focus is on art education and patronage, constantly trying to expand the boundaries of each. With art patronage still at a nascent stage in India, the organisation hopes to encourage patrons to look beyond the commissioning and acquisition of works by providing support to the entire art ecosystem.  

In art education, FICA works with diverse age groups to extend—and make viable—resources on contemporary art. They offer formal resources—in the form of grants, awards and research material—to practitioners and art students. However, their work with children focuses on “…thinking about affective relationships and unlocking your own creative and emotional response to the world around you,” says Shivadas.

The idea of reading as being central to practice or making has shaped FICA’s Reading Room. Shivadas explains that it is not just about the resources available there but also about the community that comes to learn and read together. Apart from the physical space in Delhi and the virtual reading group started during the pandemic, the reading room also operates as a travelling site. It was presented as an exhibition at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts—where artists explored the idea of reading rooms—and has featured as a temporary space that accompanied a course in collaboration with the Serendipity Arts Foundation.

_{(Featured Image: Workshop on art education with the young team members of Childscapes, who worked with children at drop-in centres run by PVR Nest. 2016)}

The ASAP Cast series is supported by the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts.