Artists
Akshita Gandhi
Akshita Gandhi is a multi-media artist based in Mumbai. By merging social, historical, and mythological concepts her work concentrates on breaking out of stereotypical gender roles, grappling with the history of colonialism, and self-empowerment. Her body immersive installations include Le cirque de la liberté (2020), a mise-en-scène inspired by the circus and Dare to Break Free (2020), a commission by the Berlin-based music festival Kater Blau. In the mixed media painting, lightbox, and poetry series Freedom, I Read Banned Books (2019-) she advocates breaking free from patriarchal structures.
Gandhi holds an MFA from the Lotus Institute in Dubai. Her work is collected by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum and she has collaborated with designer Frank DeBourge during New York Fashion Week, the Indian menswear brand Kurtees. Gandhi’s work is exhibited extensively at galleries and art fairs in India, the United States, and beyond.
Anukrti Upadhyay
Anukrti Upadhyay is an award-winning Indian national author that divides her time between Mumbai and Singapore. She writes in both English and Hindi. She stunned readers and critics alike with the twin novellas Daura and Bhaunri (2019) published by HarperCollins under their prestigious literary imprint, Fourth Estate. She delighted Hindi readers with short story collection Japani Sarai published by Rajpal and Sons and HarperCollins released her third novel in English, Kintsugi, in July. A short novel in Hindi is to be published in September 2020 and HarperCollins will publish a volume of short stories in English in July 2021. Her short stories in both and English and Hindi have appeared in prestigious literary journals.
Upadhyay has post-graduate degrees in Literature and Management, and a graduate degree in Law. Anukrti has previously worked for Goldman Sachs and UBS in Hong Kong and India. Currently, she is working with Wildlife Conservation Trust, a conservation think-tank. She also wrote a doctoral thesis on human relationships in post-modern Hindi stories in a past life.