Baolis in India, echoing the whispers of ancient waters, descending into the depths of history.
Abu Sayeed M Ahmed (Bangladesh)
Dean of the School of Environmental Science and Design & Head of the Department of Architecture in University of Asia Pacific
Jutta Jain-Neubauer
Writer & Art Historian
Dr. Jutta Jain-Neubauer, an art-historian, has been engaged in researching India’s water monuments, especially the diverse formations and cultural histories of water architecture of India for decades now. Her book The Stepwells of Gujarat in art-historical Perspective (1981) is considered a pioneering work on the subject. Her recent book Water Design. Environment and Histories (ed., 2017) attempts to explore the interconnection of the spatial topographies, aesthetic forms and the ecology of water all over the Indian sub-continent. Besides working on Sultanate period concepts of urbanism in connection with water and the water strategies of the Tughluq rulers (1320-1413), her other areas of specialization are the comparative study of canonical tenets (shastra) and architectural practice (prayoga) with special reference to the northern Indian temple entrance. Presently she is engaged in exploring other forms of water monuments, such as temple tanks and river ghats.
Writer & Art Historian
A. Mridul
A. Mridul Architect
A. Mridul, an internationally awarded architect, has a palette of diverse projects in India and the US. An alumnus of Chandigarh College of Architecture, India, his architectural consultation practice, A. Mridul, Architect, was established in 1985. A recipient of prestigious awards in India, Istanbul and Vienna, his projects and articles have been published in leading national and international magazines. Mridul is passionate about the ancient water heritage of India. He believes and practices the idea of making India water positive by contemporizing the traditional water heritage through its regeneration, replication and mainstreaming. In this pursuit, his practice has adopted and has been restoring numerous historic stepwells and water bodies. But most importantly he has been advocating iteration of traditional water architecture which he has successfully exemplified by designing an award-winning contemporary stepwell –Birkha Bawari, built in 2009, which has the capacity to harvest over 17 million litres of rainwater. His practice is an interesting mix of various typologies: institutional, public, housing, museums, religious, etc. Among many of his important museums, he has designed a unique Desert Museum, with cast‐in‐situ mud blocks, popularly known as Arna Jharna Museum for Rupayan Sansthan at Jodhpur. He has co‐founded The Jodhpur Lore, an initiative to promote centuries old traditional crafts of the region through workshops and training.
A. Mridul Architect
Vandana Sinha
American Institute of Indian Studies
Vandana heads the Center for Art and Archaeology of the American Institute of Indian Studies. During her association with the AIIS CA&A in the last two decades, she has headed several national and international documentation, research, and archiving projects of the Center. Her current area of interest is international collaboration in the field of digital cultural heritage. Towards this, she has worked with the British Library, London; Universities of Oxford, Pennsylvania, and California at Los Angeles; ArtStor, New York and The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney in developing and enhancing the visual resources on Indian art and architecture for online dissemination. Vandana was part of the planning committee who conceived and executed the Virtual Museum of Images and Sounds (www.vmis.in), a Ministry of Culture, Government of India funded project. In addition, Vandana has led several workshops and programs involving digital collaboration including virtual workshops for Indian museum professionals, funded by the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, and AIIS funded Digital India Learning (DIL) Summer Student Fellowships 2022 and 2023.
American Institute of Indian Studies
Rana Safvi
Author & Historian
Rana Safvi is a prominent figure deeply committed to India's rich cultural heritage and diverse civilizational legacy. Her work spans a variety of media including writings, podcasts, videos, and translations. With a remarkable portfolio, she has authored ten books that delve into topics ranging from culture and history to the monuments of India. Notable titles among her works include "Tales from the Quran and Hadith," "The Delhi Trilogy: Where Stones Speak," "The Forgotten Cities of Delhi," "Shahjahanabad: The Living City of Old Delhi," "A Saint, A Folk Tale and Other Stories," and "In Search of The Divine: Living Histories of Sufism in India." In addition to her literary contributions, Rana Safvi has undertaken the task of translating significant works into English. Notably, she has translated Sir Syed Ahmad Khan's pivotal piece on Delhi, "Asar-us-Sanadid," and "Dastan-e-Ghadar," along with four accounts of Delhi from the 19th and 20th centuries. Her prowess extends beyond the written word—she is a regular contributor to various national newspapers and magazines and has actively participated in conferences and seminars. Rana Safvi's blog, "ranasafvi.com," serves as a treasure trove of cultural, literary, and historical insights.
Author & Historian
Kirit Mankodi
Academician & Author
Kirit Mankodi is an Indologist and professor of Archaeology specializing in tracing looted or illegaly purchased looted Indian artworks. After receiving his M.A. and Ph.D. in Archaeology from Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Poona University, he worked at the American Academy of Benares, and since 1978 has been attached to the Project for Indian Cultural Studies founded by Franco-Indian Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai. Mankodi is the author of The Queen’s Stepwell at Patan (1991), To what God shall we Render Homage in the Temple at Modehra? and co-author of Antiquities of Himachal. His book, Temples of on the Tirtha of Baroli, is in the press. He hosts a website, www.plunderedpast.in, concerned with the repatriation of illegally exported Indian sculptures.
Academician & Author
Kavita Jain
Conservation Architect
Kavita Jain is a practicing Conservation Architect for past 25 years, who has studied from Malviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, and did a postgraduate degree in Architectural Conservation from the School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi. She has won the prestigious NDTV Grohe Award for adaptive reuse of historic buildings in 2015 and, the Kakil Dev Award from MSMS II, Museum Trust, Jaipur in 2021 among many more. She is a consultant to various Govt. departments for the conservation of various historic structures not only in Rajasthan but across many states in India for the Asian Development Bank, World Bank Schemes and also for World Monument Fund. She is empanelled with various Govt. departments such as; the Archaeological Survey of India, Archaeology & Museums department, Jaipur, and many more to name a few. Her expertise lies in working with stone & lime-based materials. She has in-depth knowledge of traditional construction processes and materials and conducts workshops and training programs for students, teachers, architects, and craftsmen for the same. She also conducts heritage walks regularly. She has been featured in various Documentary films for various TV channels on Historical Buildings and Temples.
Conservation Architect
Lalit Gupta
Art Historian & Art Critic
Dr. Lalit Gupta is an art & cultural historian. Former Head of Department, Art History & Aesthetics, Institute of Music & Fine art, University of Jammu, he is presently the Vice President of the Indian Society of Buddhist studies. A postgraduate in Art History and also Museology from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Vadodara, Dr. Lalit Gupta, has been a Member of ‘Expert Committee on Conservation, Regional Directorate (North) Archaeological Survey of India’, and a Nominated Member, (SLIC) National Mission for Antiquities & Monuments, Archaeological Survey of India, Member ICCR’s Regional Advisory Committee. He was the Project Director (2018-2022) for the ICHR project ‘Darva-Abhisāra: A Study in Place Names’, in affiliation with Jammu University’s Centre for History and Culture of Jammu & Ladakh Regions. The author of the book ‘Intangible heritage of Jammu’, published by J&K Academy of Art, Culture & Languages (2019), he was a Ministry of Culture Senior Fellow (2013-2015) for a project titled ‘Directory of Artistic and Cultural Sites of J&K with special reference to Jammu’. Dr. Gupta’s research papers on different aspects of Buddhist art and Culture of J&K, presented in international and national seminars/conferences are published as chapters in a number of books.
Art Historian & Art Critic
Nitin Barchha
Material Immaterial Studio
An Aluminus of Academy of Architecture, Mumbai, Nitin Jain established an Architectural and Interior Design practice in 2006. He likes the idea of transition spaces which probed him into then establishing a Product Design studio in 2015; Material Immaterial Studio. The studio works at the tri-junction of Architecture, Design and Art. The main body of the studio’s work comprises of collectible objects which are physically made of concrete or another material (that is immaterial), but the most important elements that these objects are made of, is the whole assemblage of shade and shadows created using architectural elements like Stairways, Arches Openings and Terraces as tools. The studios recent projects are ‘Sanctum’ and ‘Re-cast’ ; a series of miniature architectural models of 9 Magnificent step wells representing different typologies as per their architecture and an open-ended 3-dimensional architectural puzzle.
Material Immaterial Studio
Shireen Quadri (Moderator)
The Punch Magazine
Shireen Quadri is the founder and publisher of The Punch Magazine. As the director of Punch Art and Cultural Foundation, which endeavours to chronicle the proliferation of arts, literature and culture in India and around the world, she has been working in the area of art and culture advocacy for the last seven years. She has earlier worked as a marketing and communications professional with several publishing houses, including Westland (Amazon) and Simon & Schuster India. She writes on books, culture, travel and hospitality. She has served as project coordinator for Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters and has been on the jury for the tve Global Sustainability Film Awards 2021. The Punch Magazine’s Anthology of New Writings by Women Writers, edited and introduced by her, in late 2021. Occasionally, she writes on books and culture for Hindustan Times, Mint Lounge and others. On Twitter and Instagram, her handle is @shireenquadri.
The Punch Magazine
H. E. Vincenzo De Luca
Ambassador of Italy to India
Born in Naples, Vincenzo De Luca graduated in Political Science at the University of Naples. He took office on 1 February 2016 as Director-General for Cultural and Economic Promotion and Innovation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Italy, after having served in the same Directorate General as Deputy Director-General and Principal Director for the Internationalisation of the Italian Economic System (since January 2014). He has been a career diplomat since 1989 and has been given several assignments at the Foreign Ministry and at the diplomatic representations in Khartoum, Tunis, Paris (at the permanent Representation at the OECD) and in Shanghai. He has a long-standing expertise in the internationalisation of the economic system of the public and private sector, both in Central Offices, in the capacity of Diplomatic Advisor of the Ministries of Industry, Transports and Economic Development, and in large corporations like ENI and ENEL, where he served as Vice President for Institutional International Relations. During the past few years, he played a relevant role in the organisation of the EXPO Milano 2015 as President of the Foreign Ministry’s Task Force, capitalising on his experience as Consul General in Shanghai.
Ambassador of Italy to India
Mugdha Sinha
Ministry of Culture
Mugdha Sinha is a career civil servant with twenty years of wide-ranging experience in governance, policy making and International trade negotiations. She has worked in the Ministries of Textiles, Industry and Commerce both at the Centre and in her cadre, the state of Rajasthan, and also in Food, Public Distribution & Consumer Affair, and Science and Technology. She was Secretary Art, Literature, Culture and Archaeology and Director General, Kala Kendra, Jaipur for the Government or Rajasthan and is presently the Joint Secretary (GLAM Division) in the Ministry of Culture.
Ministry of Culture
Roobina Karode
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
Curator, educator and art critic, Roobina Karode is the Director & Chief Curator at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi, India, since it opened its doors in 2010. She has post-graduate specializations in Art History and in Education. Karode has over the years curated more than fifty major exhibitions, including seminal retrospectives on the art practice of Nasreen Mohamedi, at KNMA- Delhi, at the Reina Sofia Museum in Spain in 2015 and at the MET Breuer, New York in 2016. She curated a major monographic exhibitions on under-represented intergenerational artists whose contribution has been crucial within the discourse of modern and contemporary Indian art such as Himmat Shah, Jeram Patel, Vivan Sundaram and Rameshwar Broota. Karode has been focused on women artists and their significant representation in the KNMA Collection. Karode has taught Art History, both Indian Modern and Western art from 1990 to 2006, at various institutions in Delhi, mainly the School of Arts & Aesthetics in JNU, the National Museum Institute, the College of Art and the Jamia Millia Islamia University. She was awarded the Fulbright Fellowship in 2000 and the Ford Teaching Fellowship in 2005-7. In 2019, Karode was the curator for the Indian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale that earned its name in the first five must-see pavilions. Steering a rigorous program at KNMA that aims to embrace and exhibit all art forms, Karode is focused on collaborations and partnering with other significant institutions to consolidate the global presence and relevance of contemporary Indian and South Asian art.
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
Ranjit Hoskote
Poet & Curator
Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist and independent curator. His collections of poetry include Central Time (Penguin, 2014), Jonahwhale (Penguin, 2018; in the UK, by Arc, as The Atlas of Lost Beliefs, 2020), Hunchprose (Penguin, 2021), and Icelight (Wesleyan University Press & Penguin, 2023). Hoskote has been active as an independent curator, working both in India and internationally, since 1993. He curated India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale (Everyone Agrees: It’s About to Explode, 2011). He co-curated the 7th Gwangju Biennale with Okwui Enwezor and Hyunjin Kim (2008), and was a contributor to the Former West cycle of BAK/ basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht. Hoskote was a member of the curatorial-artistic core group for Acts of Voicing (Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, 2012-2013). He was co-convenor, with Maria Hlavajova, Boris Groys and Kathrin Rhomberg, of the exhibition-conference platform Former West Congress: Documents, Constellations, Prospects (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2013). Hoskote is a member of the founding international advisory board of the Bergen Assembly, Norway, and has served on the advisory boards of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin, and the Nanyang Technological University’s Centre for Contemporary Art (NTU-CCA), Singapore. He was a member of the jury for the Venice Biennale (2015).
Poet & Curator
Asad Lalljee (Moderator)
Avid Learning
Asad Lalljee is SVP, Essar Group, CEO of Avid Learning, a public programming initiative and creative platform under the Essar Group, and Curator, Royal Opera House, Mumbai. Prior to relocating to India, Asad worked for 14 years as one of the ‘Mad Men’ advertising executives on New York's Madison Avenue. Asad has transformed Avid Learning into India’s leading cultural hub through international collaborations and partnering with the biggest art platforms in the country. As a distinguished member of FICCI Art and Culture Committee since 2018l, Asad has convened multi stakeholder conferences in Mumbai and Bengaluru to democratise the arts. His is a story of drive, intent and fearlessness. Since the restoration of the Royal Opera House, Asad’a curatorial programming has re-established its reputation as the city’s cultural crown jewel. He is also serving on the Kala Ghoda Association’s Executive Committee and the advisory board of the Mumbai Urban Art Festival for 2022-23. In the midst of the pandemic (April 2020), Asad pivoted from AVID to AVID ONLINE, presenting 240 programs in a year. An early technology trend adopter, he takes a special interest in new media curating programs around NFTs and the cyberfuture.
Avid Learning
Mustansir Dalvi
Sir JJ College of Architecture
Mustansir Dalvi is Professor of Architecture at Sir JJ College of Architecture, Mumbai since 2003. He is a former member, Academic Council and former Chairperson Board of Studies in Architecture of the University of Mumbai. He is on the Board of Governors of the MMRDA Heritage Conservation Society and a trustee at the NGO Art Deco Mumbai. He received his PhD Degree from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay in 2017 for his doctoral research: Buildings as Text: Developing a Semiotic of Bombay’s Art Deco Architecture (1930-1949). He has lectured, read and published several papers on architectural education, architectural history and heritage, urban transformation and architectural semiotics. His research is published in New Architecture and Urbanism: Development of Indian Traditions (INTBAU), Buildings that shaped Bombay: The Architecture of G. B. Mhatre (UDRI), Quiet Conversations: the architecture of Kamu Iyer (MPC/NCPA), Mulk Raj Anand: Shaping the Indian Modern (Marg), Radical City: Imagining the Possibilities for the Indian City (SAGE/ Yoda Press) and The emergence of an Indigenous Practice in India - Selected works of Master, Sathe & Bhuta 1932-1956 (ADF India/KRIVA). Dalvi is the author of The Romance of Red Stone: An Appreciation of Ornament on Islamic Architecture in India (Super Book House) and The Past as Present: pedagogical practices in architecture at the Bombay School of Art (Sir JJ/UDRI). He is the editor of 20th Century Compulsions (Marg, 2016), a collection of writings about early Indian modernist architecture from some of the most important practitioners of the time.
Sir JJ College of Architecture
Stepwells of India
Research publication on architectural elements and evolution of baolis in India
Research by Dr. Madhura Yadav, Manipal University, Jaipur and Shikha Jain, DRONAH