11 Emerging Creatives From India You Should Be Paying Attention To
In New Delhi, a wave of emerging creatives are placing community-driven values at the forefront of their fields. From labels to forward-thinking fashion, the ever-growing creative scene has played an integral role in shaping the capital's cultural identity.
DJ, producer and audiovisual artist Sijya has been gaining momentum in her field. After releasing the single How to Make My Bed in 2021, she followed up with the Young Hate EP in 2022: a release comprised of six lush downtempo and ambient tracks. As a South Asian creative, the producer is certainly tapped into the New Delhi scene and who's making waves in the cultural scene there right now.
Below, Sijya highlights 11 emerging creatives from India that you should be paying attention to.
1
Karanjit Singh
For the past year, every time I’ve come across a phenomenal photograph of an artist from the Indian indie space, it's almost always shot by Karanjit Singh. Like this photograph of Rounak Maiti at Fish Point Store, Sarojini Nagar, this photo of Jay Pei and Thai musician Hinano at Lodhi Art District and this gorgeous set of photos of Ruhail Qaisar for Coeval Magazine.
While this isn’t even the core of his practice, which is the documentary form, I love his series It's Not a Turban, It's a Crown.
2
Party Office
Party Office is a space in New Delhi founded by Fadescha. Fadescha is an accomplished artist, and along with curator Shaunak Mahbubani they also run the After Party Collective.
Fadescha has created a space that’s intimate, intense, fun but not frivolous, with a curation that should be, but isn’t often found in galleries. A space like this doesn't exist in New Delhi. I’ve had some very memorable experiences and engagements in art and thought here. I especially remember a very personal session with Arshia from Discostan, where she shared her work and played us some music.
3
India Art Archive/Shlo-poke
I am a fan of Shomil Shah’s practice of archiving and reviving traditional tattoo art from the Indian subcontinent. We have a very rich folk tradition of body ink, [which is] different in different parts of tribal and rural India.
India Ink Archive is a crowdsourced archive documenting some of these, while Shomil studies them and backed by his knowledge, will make you a rendition, if you like.
4
Annette Jacob
I befriended Annette because I thought her work was brilliant – quirky, personal, aesthetically nuanced and indisputably Indian – while somehow avoiding all clichés. Her collages are works of art, and she also is a brilliant filmmaker. We made a music video together for my song 52.
5
Urvi Vora is a performance artist from New Delhi. Her work first grabbed my attention when I saw her call for participating in her project, The Naked Lunch, where she would invite people to eat lunch naked over the course of a few months. My reaction was the same as it is to most of Urvi’s work, that of shock and awe, followed by a thorough, cerebral but also whimsical engagement. We’ve now collaborated on several projects together, and continue to.
6
Mehr and Aditya from New Delhi and Bombay run a small animation and illustration-led studio called Improper.tv. I think their work is really at the forefront of animation arts in India – it has a really distinct identity and they’re not afraid of being rough and bold. Recently they’ve been making some beautiful title sequences for Netflix and other OTT shows. They made this stunning melancholy music video for me.
7
Bhushitendu
Bhushitendu and I went to college together. So when we recently made two music videos together, we fulfilled a long spoken about plan to collaborate. As a filmmaker, I love the way he thinks – it’s hilarious, simple, honest while also being responsible and nuanced. A lot of our meetings are us sharing cool things we saw enthusiastically and laughing incessantly.
He is also a brilliant photographer with a very strong rustic imprint, his work can be found here.
8
Amongst my favourite Indian musicians. Honest, raw songwriting with stunning melodies and production. He’s recently released a single called Enlightened for which he’s made a music video in collaboration with New Delhi-based filmmaker Surabhi Chowdhury. Together, they also made this stunning live performance video recently, of Rounak performing at a fish store in New Delhi.
9
My favourite Indian producer and frequent collaborator. What he makes can only be described as art hip-hop. I’m not sure if that’s even a thing, but it is stunning. He’s recently also collaborated with brilliant producer, drummer Okedo and formed the new project Okedolo. I appear on one song on their EP. Dolorblind’s EP Forbidden Fruit can be found here.
10
Subodh is something like an undefeatable maverick. There’s nothing he cant do, and he’ll do it to the T. He’s got a strong analytical approach to everything. We’ve worked on two videos together, and in one of them, he programmed an interface that would make the process of us filming the video easier – that’s the kind of thing you expect when working with him. He works in videography, improv, p5js and coding in general. But really, he can do anything.
11
Ankit Pandey
Ankit is a mad creative lighting designer from New Delhi. He’s one of the founders of Tech Quartet, a New Delhi-based lighting, visuals and design company that works with theatre and musical festivals in India. He is currently doing a masters in lighting at the Yale School of Drama. He’s worked on this crazy music video for Dastan Live.