The Politics of Art — with Ranjit Hoskote

On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by Ranjit Hoskote, poet, translator, art critic, and curator. Together they discuss Bombay’s political and cultural milieu in the 1980s and 90s, from which Ranjit began to experiment with art making, artistic and curatorial responses to an emergent neo-colonial Indian state. They also discuss the crisis of cultural politics, Ranjit’s poetic responses to humanity’s demise in this moment of ecological crisis, and the promise he sees in interstitial spaces. Full episode details: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/249-ranjit-hoskote.html Read the transcript: https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/transcripts/249-ranjit-hoskote.html Resources: Ranjit’s linktree: https://linktr.ee/rhoskote Icelight: https://www.weslpress.org/9780819500557/icelight/ Hunchprose: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/hunchprose/ Jonahwhale: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/jonahwhale/ PEN International: https://www.pen-international.org/ Bio: Ranjit Hoskote is an Indian poet, theorist, and curator whose influential work centres on the complex history and presence of cultural pluralism from the local to the global. His eight books of poetry—including Icelight (2022), Jonahwhale (2018), and a translation of a fourteenth-century Kashmiri mystic-poet, I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd (2011)—engage with themes of identity, displacement, and transformation through time. His acclaimed 2012 book Confluences: Forgotten Histories between East and West (with Ilija Trojanow) traced the rich history of intercultural and interreligious encounter that has shaped—and continues to shape—the contemporary world. Hoskote has curated more than 50 showcases of Indian and global art over the past three decades, including India’s first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Cite this episode: Chicago Style Johal, Am. “The Politics of Art — with Ranjit Hoskote.” Below the Radar, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Podcast audio, September 10, 2024. https://www.sfu.ca/vancity-office-community-engagement/below-the-radar-podcast/episodes/249-ranjit-hoskote.html.