Jaishri Abichandani
Born in Bombay, India, Jaishri Abichandani immigrated to New York City in 1984. She received her Master of Visual Arts Degree from
Goldsmiths College, University of London and has continued to intertwine art and activism in her career, founding the South Asian Women’s
Creative Collective in New York and London. She has exhibited her work internationally at various venues including P.S.1/MOMA, the
Queens Museum of Art, and Exit Art in New York; the 798 Beijing Biennial and the Guangzhou Triennial in China; Nature Morte and Gallery
Chemould in India; the IVAM in Valencia; and the House of World Cultures in Berlin. Jaishri served as the founding Director of Public Events
and Projects from 2003–06 at the Queens Museum of Art, where she co-curated Fatal Love: South Asian American Art Now and Queens
International 2006 Everything All at Once. Other international curatorial projects include Sultana’s Dream, Exploding the Lotus, Artists in
Exile, Anomalies, and Transitional Aesthetics. Her work is included in various international collections including the Burger Collection (burgercollection.com), the Florian Peters-Messer Collection (www.fpmcollection.com), and the Saatchi Collection.
Asma Kazmi was born in Pakistan and studied at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her work has been exhibited and included in collections such as the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis; Galerie Sans Titre, Brussels,
Belgium; Gallery 400, University of Illinois in Chicago; Boston Underground Film Festival; Balagan Film and Video Series, Boston; Women
In Film & Video/New England; and the MassArt Film Society.
Swati Khurana
Swati Khurana is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work has been shown locally at Bronx Museum, Queens Museum, Bose Pacia, Center
for Book Arts, Exit Art, Momenta Art, Jersey City Museum, and Rush Arts; and internationally in Costa Rica, The Gambia, Italy, India, and
Nepal. Awards nclude: Jerome Foundation, Bronx Museum’s Artist-in-Marketplace, Aljira’s Emerge, and Atlantic Center for the Arts. She has
had residencies at Henry Street Settlement, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Pace University, and Kartong Village Development Committee (The
Gambia, West Africa). She will be presenting her newest work in a solo exhibition at Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai in January 2010. Swati is a
founding member of SAWCC.
Shalalae Jamil
Shalalae Jamil was born in Karachi, Pakistan in 1978. Educated at Bennington College (BFA, 2001) and the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago, (MFA, 2006) she has since taught, exhibited, and curated work in Pakistan, the U.S., and the U.K. Using photography, video,
installation, and elements of performance, her works target home as a region consumed by the collisions between religion, tradition, and
modernity. In 2009, she has shown work at the Kara Film Festival, Greynoise, and Woman Made Gallery. Her work is in private collections
in India, Pakistan, and the U.S. Currently the artist lives and works between Karachi and New York.
Divya Mehra
Divya Mehra is a multimedia artist who recently earned an MFA from Columbia University, New York. She obtained her BFA with Honors from
the University of Manitoba’s School of Art. In her practice she explores issues of cultural displacement and hybridization, deploying a humorous perspective in the execution of the works. Her work has been included in a number of exhibitions and screenings across North America.
Sa'dia Rehman
Sa’dia Rehman was born in Queens, New York. Her works have been exhibited both internationally and nationally at venues such as the
National Queens Gallery of Art Islamabad, Queens Museum of Art, Abrons Arts Center, and Exit Art. She has participated in residencies at the
Bronx Museum of Art (New York, 2008) and National Gallery of Art (Islamabad, 2006). She lives, works, and drinks tea in Brooklyn, New York.
Apnavi Thacker
Born in Bombay, India and brought up in Geneva, Switzerland, Apnavi Thacker grew up benefiting from two very different cultures. Her
experiences in both cities have had a major impact on her work. Apnavi is a self-taught artist, although she gained valuable knowledge and
experience during her two years of training under the guidance of Bose Krishnamachari. Her work addresses such issues as the possible link
between a woman and her self-confidence and level of comfort with her sexuality, and the impact of urban development on the environment.
Her work retains a focus on street art, common in most cities around the world although it remains non-existent in Bombay. Apnavi has
exhibited in Bombay in both solo and group shows. This includes the Mumbai Festival in 2005, for which she was commissioned to do a
single piece inspired by her thoughts on the city of Bombay, and the Kala Ghoda festival in 2006 for which she created an installation
consisting of urinals. The works represent a continuation of themes based on urban development.
Gazelle Samizay
Gazelle Samizay is an artist who works predominantly in video and photography. Born in Kabul, Afghanistan and now residing in the
United States, Samizay’s work explores the intersection of her Afghan heritage and American upbringing, touching on both the personal and sociopolitical. Her photographs and videos have been exhibited across the U.S. and internationally, including Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia,
Pakistan, Peru, and the U.K. In addition to her studio practice, she has taught courses in Afghanistan, Jordan, and the U.S. She is a
recipient of the Princess Grace Experimental Film Honoraria, the Peter Treistman Creative Project Award, and the Centennial Achievement
Award, among others. Currently, she is pursuing her Master’s in Fine Arts at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Vandana Jain
