Cross-cultural collaborations in India

In an article for Arts Professional, writer and creative producer Harpreet Kaur profiles contemporary India: "With a culture hungry population and one of the fastest growing economies in the world, India is ripe for cross-cultural collaboration"

The creative industries in India are growing, with projects, festivals, events and enterprises developing daily. The Indian government does not support culture and arts development through allocated funds and there is no strategic model or arts policy being implemented at a national level (75% of people live in slums in Delhi and the arts are not quite the government’s priority at present). Yet initiatives and collaborative ventures continue to pop up all over the country. Many entrepreneurs are keen to collaborate with like-minded individuals to bring their dreams to life and create space in the market for new experiences.

The young generation are hyper-consumers of digital technology and new media, hungry for new ideas, artistic self-expression, travel and individuality. The socio-economic environment they grow up in almost forces them to be entrepreneurs. What is happening in India at present is what took place in England in the 1960s, but executed differently. Design thinking is increasingly popular and is taught at university, but here creative ventures happen by partnering with sponsors or working on a range of projects simultaneously, allowing the income from one or two to feed into the artistic aims.

Read the full article by Harpreet Kaur for Arts Professional, where she presents a number of innovative arts projects taking place in India and concludes:

The future looks optimistic for the arts in India, as the energy for growth and experimentation is high on the agenda of the young generation.

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