New Arts Center to Open in Kolkata
By Camilla Alvarez-Chow
Exterior of the Tri arts and cultural center building. Courtesy Tri, Kolkata.
A new multidisciplinary arts and cultural center, Tri, is coming to Kolkata on January 19. Founders Varun and Nitasha Thapar—siblings and second generation art collectors—aim to contribute to West Bengal’s contemporary art scene by incorporating a wide range of disciplines, including visual, performing, musical, media, craft, and culinary arts. Tri will be a cultural complex that hosts art exhibitions, events, performances, and public programs, while also offering various dining and retail experiences.
For its opening the art space will showcase two solo exhibitions: Pune-based multimedia artist Prabhakar Pachpute’s “Sea of Fists” and Kolkata-based textile artist Kallol Datta’s “Volume 3, Issue 2 / 2.0,” both curated by Priyanka and Prateek Raja of Experimenter Gallery. Pachpute’s show will explore protests surrounding India’s agricultural industry and conflicts over land and labor through the lens of local farmers’ campaigns for land rights and survival. Datta’s solo is part of an ongoing investigation into Indigenous clothing practices from a vast range of regional inspirations, spanning Southwest Asia, North Africa, India, and Korea, while exploring ideas of cultural sustainability woven through fabrics.
Interior of the Tri arts and cultural center. Courtesy Tri.
Tri is built on a redeveloped 20th-century historical estate and is named after the heritage building’s unique infrastructure, a design choice that the center hopes will inspire the “triangulation of ideas.” Evoking Tri’s diverse purview, before its official launch, the center provided support for the inaugural edition of Kolkata Queer Arts Month (Ko:QAM), held from December 8, 2023 to January 3, 2024. In this collaboration Tri aided with the documentation of the Ko:QAM’s culinary micro-residency, conducted by chef Anumitra Ghosh Dastidar of the sustainable restaurant and bar Edible Archives on December 13, 16, and 18, 2023.
Aiming to cement itself as a global hub for the arts, Tri will collaborate with visiting curators, local and international galleries, art spaces, colleges, and cultural institutions to present exhibitions on modern and contemporary art in South Asia and beyond, including for up-and-coming artists and established veterans in the field. Looking toward the future, the site aspires to establish a diverse arts community through an impressive line-up of performances, workshops, lectures, and art talks.
Camilla Alvarez-Chow is an editorial assistant at ArtAsiaPacific.
