*Sharing knowledge means constantly and collectively re-producing it to create new forms and modalities of solidarity and togetherness.

• Ahmet Öğüt, The Silent University, 2016

This reader dealt deeply with artistic ethics and aesthetics. It is our hope that it has been a way to share knowledge about artistic practices through the direct words of artists and producers. We hunger to understand ourselves as part of an ecosystem. The artists in the reader are at the frontier of prototyping other modes of storytelling. These conversations are a window into how a transgenerational cohort of artists do what they do and the polyphony of their practices and processes is precisely why there is no inherently ‘South Asian’ process of making new work. This is the start of a broader conversation that our institutions need to reckon with. We come to those reckonings through our craft and our communities.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part One
We never talk about God in the theatre. Or, spirituality. Why?
On thinking about audiences at an abstract level
On taking work to audiences outside of traditional spaces
Zainab shares her process of producing Black Brass
Nithya on co-creating Outwitted! for Happenstance festival

Part Two
In conversation with Jay Emmanuel
In conversation with Ravi Jain
In conversation with Shahid Nadeem
In conversation with Jacob Rajan
In conversation with Durga Bishwokarma

Conclusion