This is the title of a lecture by New York based Indian artist Sharmistha Ray.

Date: Thursday, September 21st, 2006,

Time: 6pm

Venue: The Children’s Creative Center, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (formerly the Prince of Wales Museum), M.G. Road, Mumbai 400001.

Sharmistha Ray is an artist whose feet are firmly planted in two worlds. Indian-born but living mostly in America and elsewhere abroad, she combines

an understanding of the issues relevant to Indian life and culture with a critical awareness of how Indian art is regarded by the International art

world.

India provided the inspiration for the worldwide bestseller “The World Is Flat” in which internationally renowned American journalist and writer,

Thomas Friedman, explained the pervasive effects of western-style globalization on Asian cultures and economies in the twenty-first century.

The explosion of the IT sector and the proliferation of MNC’s, modern multiplexes housed in American-style shopping malls filled with brand name

products, the ownership of mobile phones by everyone from the billionaire industrialist in his high-rise office to the corner phuchkawallah – such are

the cultural signifiers of a New India with a Global Imprint.

In this new era of development, the smart citizens adopt the new cultural language and

the ones who don’t get left behind. Artists are not exempt. A revitalizednation requires new artistic solutions to reflect its dynamic growth and

shifting cultural landscape. The pioneering few that combine the spirit of invention with a willingness to push the social envelope are the ones that

will crossover to the mainstream and find a universal audience. Artists to be discussed include Nalini Malani, Ranbir Kaleka, Shilpa Gupta and Raqs

Media Collective.

Sharmistha received a dual Masters degree in Painting and Art History from New York’s Pratt Institute and she has had numerous exhibitions in the

United States and won several awards including the Joan Mitchell Grant in 2004, a major national prize for artists. Ray is currently based in Kolkata

where she is working towards a solo exhibition in December 2006. This is her first exhibition in India.