Talks
Chai, Coffee & Conversations
Stuart Freedman, Alana Hunt, Varun Nayar
From masala chai to filter kaapi, India’s a country of tea and coffee lovers. Bringing a unique perspective to conversations around these beloved beverages, this session features photographers Stuart Freedman and Alana Hunt in conversation with MAP Academy’s lead editor, Varun Nayar.
Stuart Freedman is the author of The Palaces of Memory: Tales From the Indian Coffee House, that includes photographs from more than thirty branches of the India Coffee House across the country, and presents a unique window into a transforming India and the everyday life of its patrons and bearers. Alana Hunt is the creator and author of Cups of Nun Chai, a photo series and book that unfolded over two years of tea and conversation with 118 people, in Australia, India and Kashmir, documenting personal narratives and turning into a memorial for those who were killed in the summer of 2010 in Kashmir. Examining these bodies of works, this event will explore the artists’ take on history, politics, change and conflict through the lens of the personal.
This event is in collaboration with Bangalore International Centre (BIC).
Stuart Freedman
Photographer and Writer
Stuart Freedman was born in London and has been a photographer since 1991. His work has been published in, amongst others, Life, Geo, Time, Der Spiegel, Newsweek and The Sunday Times magazine.
His work has been recognised in many awards including those from Amnesty International, Pictures of the Year, The World Sports Photo Award, The Royal Photographic Society and UNICEF.
In 2016, his book, The Palaces of Memory was a finalist at POYi for Best Photography Book of the Year and was chosen for The American Photography Annual (AI-AP).
He continues to write and photograph for a variety of editorial and commercial clients. He is a member of Panos Pictures in London and is represented by Tasveer Gallery in India.
Alana Hunt
Artist and writer
Alana Hunt is an artist and writer who lives in Miriwoong country in the north-west of Australia. This and her long-standing relationship with South Asia—and with Kashmir in particular—shapes her engagement with the violence that results from the fragility of nations and the aspirations and failures of colonial dreams.
Alana has been working on evolving iterations of Cups of nun chai since 2010, most recently published by Yaarbal Books. She presented new work in The National 2021: New Australian Art at Carriageworks (Sydney) where she was the inaugural writer in residence producing the six part series Conversations and Correspondence.
Her diverse and distributed practice is shaped by a commitment to sensitively challenge ideas and histories in the public sphere and the social space between people. Outside of traditional exhibitions and publishing contexts her work has circulated in the Hansard Report of the Australian Parliament, as a reading in the history department of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, as a newspaper serial in Srinagar, Kashmir, and as an unofficial street sign at the base of Australia’s most under-utilised dam wall.
Varun Nayar
Lead Editor, MAP Academy, Bengaluru
Varun Nayar is a Mumbai-based writer and editor with a special research interest in lens-based practices in South Asia. He is the lead editor at the MAP Academy, Bengaluru, and has previously written for Foam Magazine, Himal Southasian, Words Without Borders and Nat Geo Traveller India, among other publications.
