Kuzhali Jaganathan

Biography

With over seven years of experience in the arts and culture sector, Kuzhali has worked across a range of roles—including dancer, programmes manager, curator and writer—shaping a multidisciplinary and practice-informed approach to curatorial work. Her engagement as a freelance dancer sparked an interest in cultural policy and its influence on pedagogy, which became an impetus for her curatorial career.

She began her professional journey at Serendipity Arts Foundation, a non-profit institution that promotes creative placemaking through its annual multidisciplinary festival. There, she contributed to various facets of festival planning, including project management, curatorial assistance and public engagement. For a deeper understanding of interdisciplinary frameworks, she pursued a Master’s degree in Arts & Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Core modules on modernism, institutional histories and the culture industries enabled her to situate exhibition histories as essential for interpreting contemporary artistic practice.

Following her graduate studies, she joined the Museum of Art & Photography (MAP), Bengaluru as a Curator. At MAP, she was responsible for the end-to-end development of exhibitions, drawing from the museum’s diverse and expansive collection. She curated three exhibitions that delved into India’s modern history, sculpting and printmaking traditions through monographic studies, and exploratory practices through material experimentation.

As an independent curator and writer, her work continues to engage with questions around the representation of women, living traditions and the evolving role of cultural industries. For her curatorial residency at Dhi Artspace, she is exploring how regional museum displays influence collective memory and shape visual imageries. This project seeks to examine how contemporary artists become mediators of representational histories by reimagining the region through materials, motifs and methods. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Visual Studies at JNU, where she is researching the impact of Geographical Indications on objects of utility.

Kuzhali Jaganathan, an Independent Curator and Researcher in Chennai, India, has been awarded by the Getty Foundation.