A POET AND A PAINTER

Javed Akhtar is one of India’s most celebrated screenwriters, lyricists, poets, and activists. Through his remarkable body of work, he has shaped the way India speaks, sings, and feels. His debut poetry collection, Tarkash, is the country’s best-selling poetry book in six decades, while his books Talking Films and Talking Songs are widely treasured for their insights into Indian cinema. A Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha from 2010 to 2016, Akhtar played a pivotal role in advocating for the Copyright Amendment Bill, which secured royalty rights for writers and composers. He currently serves as the Chairman of the Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS). His numerous honours include the Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, Sahitya Akademi Award, honorary doctorates from SOAS University of London, Jamia Hamdard University, and other distinguished institutions, an honorary Doctor of Letters from Pondicherry University, and the Dostoevsky Star Award 2025. His poetry has been translated into several languages, including English, French, Italian, Bengali, Marathi, and Kannada. Through his literary achievements, contributions to Indian cinema, and advocacy for artists’ rights, Akhtar continues to be one of India’s most influential and respected public voices.

Baaraan Ijlal is a self-taught artist based in New Delhi, India. Her multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sound, video, photography, embroidery and stone inscriptions, grounded in listening and sustained attention to people, places, language and memory. Her ongoing projects Change Room (2018–) and Hostile Witness (2014–) take shape through questions of anonymity, displacement, memory and erasure. Her works are held by Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Devi Art Foundation and KADIST, Paris. She has exhibited at Hayy Jameel, Chintretsukan Gallery, Tokyo University of the Arts for SGFA- CRiSAP, CREA ReConference, KHOJ, Arte Laguna, Venice, and CSMVS, Mumbai. She received a KHOJ Peripheries & Crossovers grant and residencies at Sharjah Art Foundation, Conflictorium Museum and Sanskriti Kendra.

Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, translator, cultural theorist and curator. His poetry collections include Vanishing Acts: New & Selected Poems 1985-2005 (Penguin, 2006), Central Time (Penguin, 2014), Jonahwhale (Penguin, 2018; in the UK as The Atlas of Lost Beliefs by Arc, 2020), Hunchprose (Penguin, 2021), and Icelight (Wesleyan University Press, 2023). Hoskote’s acclaimed translations include I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded (Penguin Classics, 2011) and The Homeland’s an Ocean: Mir Taqi Mir (Penguin Classics, 2024). He has authored a book of essays on the painter Gieve Patel, To Break and To Branch (Seagull, 2024) and is co-editor of an international transdisciplinary anthology on the climate crisis, Practices of Hope: A Reader for the Future (Niyogi/ Goethe-Institut Mumbai, 2026). Hoskote curated India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2011) and was co-curator, with Okwui Enwezor and Hyunjin Kin, of the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008). He served on the jury of the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), was a curatorial advisor to the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), and participated in the Venice Biennale of Architecture (2023). He is a founding member of the Advisory Board of the Bergen Assembly, a visual arts triennial in Norway. In January 2027, he will curate the inaugural edition of SITE Jodhpur, a biennale-scale platform for public art.