New Bridge India is a nonprofit making cultural initiative by Dr. Rajashree Biswal (Art Historian, Curator and Researcher) and Birendra Pani (Contemporary Visual Artist). It intends to create a new awareness and engagement through art by bridging the gap between different ideas, persons, community, space, place, disciplines, institutions, and those existing within the system and structure. Started in 2015, it endeavours to create a novel cultural forum through research and documentation, art education and visual cultural literacy programme, promotion of various forms of art practice and cultural activities, interaction with different creative practitioners and mediums so as to understand and engage with the complex human experience in a local, regional, national and global paradigm in the contemporary times. Moreover, to propagate ‘new viewership’ of ‘art’ and promote cultural dialogue among the larger public are important facets of this initiative.
She is an Agricultural Engineer turned the first woman Art Historian and Curator from Odisha. Her
engagement in the field of visual art has been shaped by her wide range of experience in different fields
and her work with the Adivasi women in the grassroots in Madhya Pradesh and in Odisha. She holds her
MVA (Art history and Aesthetics) from the premium institution of M.S. University, Vadodara and a
Doctorate degree from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her Ph.D. work on
‘contemporary community based art practice in India’ was highly appreciated by the University of
Washington, Seattle. She has been awarded with a number of prestigious Fellowships and Awards like the
ICSSR Postdoctoral Fellowship, New Delhi; UGC Postdoctoral Fellowship, New Delhi; ICSSR Doctoral
Fellowship, New Delhi; Charles Wallace India Trust Research Visit Grant Award, London, UK; Junior
Fellowships from Ministry of Culture (Sociology of Culture), New Delhi; and a Junior Fellowship from
Forum on Contemporary Theory, Vadodara. She has participated and presented papers in a wide number of
national and international seminars and conferences in India and abroad. She has extensively published in
national and international level art magazines and journals. Dr. Biswal was the Editor of the national level
art magazine ART FAIR- A Magazine of Contemporary Visual Culture. She has curated a number of art
exhibitions in different parts of India and out of the country. She firmly believes that it is only through
engagement in the domain of theory and practice, one can critically involve with the intricate and
multifaceted issues related to art and life in the contemporary globalizing world.
Email:- rajashreebiswal2018@gmail.com
Mob:- 9560458840
Birendra Pani, a contemporary visual artist whose artistic journey has been influenced by a broad range of art practice and cultural experiences. Starting with the aesthetic experience of miniature tradition to the local folk and theatre performance of his native state Odisha, his art education was fortified by the renowned institutions of Kala Bhavan of Santiniketan and M. S University of Vadodara. Pani’s art works engage with the contemporary material culture and human life and the negligence of the local place, culture, history, memory and identity in the present time. It explores the struggles, contradictions, dichotomies and change in value, knowledge and culture in our present society and life. Pani is the recipient of several important Fellowships and awards like the Junior and Senior Fellowship from the Ministry of Culture, New Delhi; National Award from Odisha Lalita Kala Akademi, Bhubaneswar; First Prize in All India Art Contest & Exhibition South Zone Cultural Centre; 50 years’ Post-Independence Art Award in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha; “WAA Summer Show Award, Bhubaneshwar; a number of awards from the State Lalita Kala Akademi, Bhubaneswar; and scholarship from the Viswa Bharati University, Santiniketan. Pani has extensively exhibited his art works in solo exhibitions like Mahanadi- A Journey through History, Memory and Culture, Soft Subversion, Re-Vision, Boy Dancer-Convergence and Continuum, Risk-The Double Edge of Society, and Echo in places like New York, Bangalore, New Delhi, Kolkata, Vadodara and more than 300 group exhibitions in Paris, Egypt, London, Switzerland, Seoul, Fukuoka, Dubai, New Jersey, Hong Kong and in different parts of India.
Email:- panibirendra@gmail.com
Mob:- 9953485363
