Harsh Light: Uthra Rajgopal & Nikita Gill
Wednesday 8 September, 7 – 8:30pm
Online (via Zoom)
Free & open to all
We are very excited to present our ninth Harsh Light session to you in September.
This webinar series was introduced in exactly a year ago after a few months’ programming pause at Bloc Projects. A conversational space for practitioners and publics alike, the webinars serve a number of important functions during a particularly difficult year: for critique and restoration, for ‘going public’ with the ways we work as an organisation.
In each session, we invite two or more speakers to talk about their practice in relation to arts funding structures like Arts Council England (ACE) and the interrelated crises of health, environment and social discontent.
Bloc Projects wants to keep growing this platform as a place for regular reflection on the state of the art worlds around the UK and how we shape and understand them in such uncertain times. Rather than the weekly sessions of 2020, Harsh Light is now happening every month or two. We hope that this will give each webinar the room to breathe and be more closely considered. The webinars will continue to question the ways in which the three ACE outcomes (creative people; cultural communities; creative & cultural country) and four investment principles (inclusivity and relevance, ambition and quality, dynamism, and environmental responsibility) affect our practices, as well as how we situate our work and lives in the complicated contexts of ‘now’.
Harsh Light’s third webinar of 2021 will explore ‘creative people’ as one of the stated outcomes of ACE’s 2020-2030 strategy. Uthra and Nikita hope to question how this ‘creativity’ is conceptualised and the power relations involved. Funding—in terms of money, know-how and opportunities—tend to be more numerous the larger you are as a figure or institution. So how ‘open’ are funding processes to those who are in fact creative? Do they accommodate people from different spectrums and backgrounds? In other words, how accessible is funding, really?
Our speakers will talk through some of their own interview and grant application experiences. Beyond that, Uthra and Nikita will reflect on the current keenness to ‘engage’ specific groups and/or audiences, a particularly important remit for many organisations right now. But what kind of support, if any, exists for people who take part in projects?
About the speakers
Uthra Rajgopal
Uthra is an Independent Curator. Formerly at the Whitworth and the V&A she has developed a specialist interest in fibre arts and South Asian textiles. In 2019 Uthra received the Art Fund New Collecting Award, to build a collection of artworks connecting South Asia and the diaspora in England. Her curatorial practice includes the exhibitions Beyond Borders, Four Corners of One Cloth, Bodies of Colour and MIF. Most recently she was appointed as the Curator for the Banu Rangoonwala Sculpture Terrace for the new South Asia Gallery at Manchester Museum, due to open in Autumn 2022.
Nikita Gill
Nikita is an artist, practitioner and curator-in-training with the International Institute of Visual Arts (INIVA) and Manchester Art Gallery. She received her MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies from the University of Manchester in 2019. Her previous work includes support of the exhibition and development of Excavating the Reno (2017 – 2018), Portraits of Recovery with David Hoyle and Mark Prest (2017), Bodies of Colour (2018) and Joy Forever (2019) at the Whitworth Art Gallery. She has developed and supported performances for Block Universe (2020), Jade Montserrat (2021) and Glasgow International (2021). Nikita is interested in decolonial practices within performance and new media, centred on care within the context of art gallery collections. Currently Nikita is working on Future Collect, supporting Jade Montserrat’s commission by INIVA. Nikita is a recipient of the 2021 UK New Artists Future Producers Grant and is joint creative producer for PROFORMA Desire Lines (2021 - 22). Nikita is a member of the Black Curators Collective.
Click to view a recording of the discussion on our YouTube channel
Bloc Projects is proud to maintain a public programme that is free for everyone. However, attendees are encouraged to donate to the S2 Foodbank, who are carrying out essential work during this time. To donate either follow the link on our homepage or click the button below.
This programme of events has been generously supported by Arts Council England