This year, the iconic Jaipur Literature Festival is all set to run from 19th – 23rd January at Hotel Clarks Amer, Jaipur. Marking another year of ‘the greatest literary show on Earth’, the Festival will recognise and celebrate visual art with exceptional indigenous (tribal/traditional) artistic talent along with contemporary artists. The Ojas Art Award remains one of the highlights of the Festival, displaying artworks covered since 2015 at the Festival.
The 2023 edition of the Festival will host some iconic artworks representing Gond Art (Madhya Pradesh), Madhubani-Mithila Art (Bihar), Bhil Art (Madhya Pradesh), Pattachitra Art (Bengal), Warli Art (Maharashtra), and Pattachitra Art (Odisha). The Festival will also feature Padma Shri awardees and their incredible work through a collaborative effort, blending art and culture.
This year, an artwork – Vishwaroopa – based on nature and her elements, curated by three artistes – a practitioner of Gond art, Padma shri Bhajju Shyam; artist Manjunath Kamath, and Mithila artist Santosh Kumar Das, will be showcased. This exemplary artwork, was a result of multiple conversations between the artistes and initiated over a two-week long workshop in Delhi. Post the workshop, the artistes also worked on the artwork individually, lending it their signature styles. The work measures an impressive 8 feet on Wasli paper, mainly using inks. Uniquely, this is truly a collaborative work where the styles of the three artistes are intertwined to the extent that it is difficult to make out where one’s style begins and the other’s ends.
Anubhav Nath, Director, Ojas Art, said, “This year, the Ojas Art Award celebrates excellence in the field of arts, with the confluence of indigenous and contemporary art at the sixteenth edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival. Viswaroopa, a landmark work created by three artistes: Bhajju Shyam, Manjunath Kamath and Santosh Kumar Das, will be presented at the Festival.”
Nath has committed to a long-term project wherein a well-known contemporary urban artist will work alongside indigenous artistes as a mentor, finally culminating in an exhibition. Audiences will also get to witness some magnificent installations. To register for the Festival, visit here.
NOTES TO MEDIA PERSONS
For media enquiries on the Jaipur Literature Festival, please contact Edelman India and Teamwork Arts: IndiaJLF@edelman.com and manash@teamworkarts.com
About Jaipur Literature Festival:
Described as the ‘greatest literary show on Earth’, the Jaipur Literature Festival is a sumptuous feast of ideas.
The past decade has seen it transform into a global literary phenomenon having hosted over 5,000 speakers and artists and welcoming over a million book lovers from across India and the globe.
Our core values remain unchanged: to serve as a democratic, non-aligned platform offering free and fair access.
Every year, the Festival brings together a diverse mix of the world’s greatest writers, thinkers, humanitarians, politicians, business leaders and entertainers on one stage to champion the freedom to express and engage in thoughtful debate and dialogue.
Writers and Festival Directors Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple, alongside producer Teamwork Arts, invite speakers to take part in the five-day programme set against the backdrop of Rajasthan’s stunning cultural heritage.
Past speakers have ranged from Nobel Laureates J. M. Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk, Malala Yousafzai, Muhammad Yunus and Joseph Stiglitz; Man Booker Prize winners Ben Okri, Douglas Stuart, Margaret Atwood and Paul Beatty; Sahitya Akademi winners Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, M. T. Vasudevan Nair, as well as the late Girish Karnad, Mahasweta Devi and U. R. Ananthamurthy; along with literary superstars including Amish Tripathi, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Vikram Seth. An annual event that goes beyond literature, the Festival has also hosted Amartya Sen, Amitabh Bachchan, the late A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Bill Gates, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Oprah Winfrey, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Stephen Fry, Thomas Piketty and former president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai.
The Jaipur Literature Festival is a flagship event of Teamwork Arts, which produces it along with over 25 highly acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and literary festivals across more than 40 cities globally.
Website: www.jaipurliteraturefestival.org
About Teamwork Arts:
Teamwork Arts is a highly versatile production company with roots in the performing arts, social action and the corporate world. For over 30 years, Teamwork Arts has taken India to the world and brought the world to India, presenting the finest of Indian performers, writers, change makers and visual artistes in the knowledge and arts space in India and abroad. Every year, we produce over 33 festivals in 42 cities and 17 countries in the fields of performing & visual arts and literature. We produce the world’s largest literary gathering: the annual Jaipur
Literature Festival; JLF international now travels to the US, UK, Canada, Australia and the Maldives and soon in Europe.
Even amidst the upheaval and unsettling times of 2020 and through 2021, Teamwork Arts successfully launched the digital series, ‘JLF Brave New World’ and ‘Words Are Bridges’, which were viewed by over 4.8 million people in their first season. Through its digital avatar, the Jaipur Literature Festival reached over 27 million viewers in January 2021. Our initiative ‘Art Matters’ empowers artistes across India to collaborate across genres by commissioning them to create new works thereby effecting change & raising awareness. The digital series ‘Be Inspired’ was launched in 2021 – a series that crystal-gazes into the future with conversations on science, technology, innovation, environment and more.
Website: www.teamworkarts.com
