The mail art project was conceptualized as a means to interact, collaborate and create art through mail. Akin to the idea of pen pals, artists were assigned another artist collaborator every month. The artists created art or conceptualized ideas or sent materials to their counterparts which were worked further on and then completed in theory of form by the receiving artist.
Every month they also received a mail from another artist collaborator which they worked on. Every artist sent a mail and received a mail. One which they conceptualized and sent to another artist, the other conceptualized by another artist and completed by themself.
There was no overarching theme to the project. The artists chose what to work on and send every month. Every work and every mail was unique and largely depended on what the artist was thinking and feeling that month.
The only factors at the core of the project are, having to send a physical mail by post, with some palpable contents and to collaborate, as in work with ideas of materials sent by another artist.
Starting from April 2025, the artists and curators (we also participated. Who would pass up such a opportunity for interaction and collaboration and receiving mails?) sent and received and worked on ten works over ten months, until February 2026.
We are very lucky to have some of the foremost artists, and practitioners from other disciplines, making the exchange a unique one.
Our Artists
Smitha Cariappa is an inter-disciplinary artist, acclaimed for her contribution in Live Art Performance in the Visual Arts and as a curator. She is at home with both live and video graphed performances. Since 2006 she has performed upon invitation in Big River, Trinidad and Tobago by Triangular Arts Council UK, TAMA, Tupada, Phillipines, Live Art Performance platforms in Aarau, Basel, Bern, Zurich, OZU in Rome and also in Berlin, Bangkok, Performance Art Biennale in Chile. She has also performed in Australia , Sri Lanka and Tel Aviv.
Manmeet Devgun is a Delhi-based performance and interdisciplinary artist, and an art educator.
Manmeet’s work, often addressing feminist themes, is deeply personal and connected to her life experiences. She has exhibited in Delhi, Vienna, Berlin, and more. In 2019, she received a grant for her project The Mother’s Studio as part of the Five Million Incidents initiative. She recently performed at the India Art Fair 2024 and Gallery Espace. Manmeet is also a poet, school teacher, and a single mother navigating life’s challenges, while embracing creativity through daydreams and dance.
Rahel Hegnauer is an artist who works locally and site-specifically. She lives mainly in Zurich but also spends extended periods of time in the places where she is working on a project or exhibition. Spatial aspects, as well as aspects of the history, politics and society of a place, determine
the direction in which her work develops.In 2004 and 2016, she was nominated for the Swiss Art Awards and in 2018 for the City of Zurich’s work and studio scholarship. She has exhibited and had projects in Switzerland and Germany. She has participated in artist residencies in Slovakia , Tunisia , France, the Netherlands and India.
Sonia Jose is an artist and educator based in Bengaluru. Working across drawing, painting, photography, collage, sculpture, and textiles, her work explores material, the body, and process. Her work has been exhibited in India and internationally, including at MAP Bengaluru, Dakshina Chitra Museum, Chennai, and the Kochi Biennale. A recipient of the Robert Bosch Art Grant and a FICA Emerging Artist Award finalist, she is also a certified swimming and water safety instructor.
Antara Mukherji is an artist and educator based in Bangalore whose practice bridges creative expression and emotional well-being. Working across diverse media, her art is deeply rooted in personal narratives and guided by a belief in art as a universal language—one that connects people across ages, contexts, and experiences.
A recipient of two grants from India Foundation for the Arts, Mukherji has contributed to art-in-education initiatives in Karnataka. She also illustrates food and designs books.
Shaista Banu is a writer based in Bangalore. She works with a PSU “because she needs to and also writes because she needs to”(in her own words). She writes short stories and scripts. She recently was involved in scriptwriting and the direction dept of Malayalam feature film Theatre.
Poornima Sukumar is a visual artist who primarily works on public and site specific art projects. She founded Aravani Art project a visual art collective that works to strengthen ties within the transgender community. Her work has been exhibited widely both nationally and internationally.
Sandhya Byataraya is a Bangalore-based artist who primarily works with clay.
Sandhya has worked at Poorna Learning Centre, as pottery facilitator and later contributed as an art facilitator at Artville academy. A year long apprenticeship at the Kouraku kiln in Kyushu, Japan —continues to influence her creative process and the way she looks at life.
Seema Jain is an artist, printmaker and educator based in Bangalore. Her practice emerges from everyday experiences, personal memory, and emotional landscapes. Her work transforms moments from daily life—conversations, relationships, and social realities—into visual and performative expressions that reflect on identity, belonging, and the subtle forces that shape them.Influenced by her upbringing within a traditional family shaped by the cultural values of Rajasthan, Jain explores themes of memory, womanhood, survival, and human connection, with a particular sensitivity to how gender expectations inform lived experience.
Thara Thomas is an artist based in Bangalore, working across murals, illustration, and public art. Her practice centers on visual storytelling, transforming spaces into sites of reflection and dialogue shaped by everyday narratives.
Rooted in the relationship between space, context, and community, Thomas engages closely with people, tracing local histories and cultural patterns to create work that reflects shared narratives and collective memory. She has also worked as a curatorial consultant with organizations such as Azim Premji Foundation and Azim Premji University.
Mithila Baindur is a visual artist and educator based in Bangalore. Her practice spans sculpture, illustration, and archival exhibition design. Mithila’s work often explores the intersection of tactile form and narrative storytelling.
Her diverse professional portfolio includes creating realistic wildlife sculptures for the Indian Institute of Science, designing archival exhibits for the NIMHANS Heritage Museum, and contributing illustrations to publications, including The Language of the Unhealed Wounds (2023) and Ancient Indian Scholars (2024).
Ghana N M is an artist based in Villupuram, Tamil Nadu. She runs a community initiative that trains women to weave bags. She is a also a muralist.
Ranjana Raghunathan is an anthropologist, who works as Assistant Professor at Vidyashilp University, Bangalore. Her research interests are in urban ethnography, gender and mental health. She also writes poetry, draws with pen and loves cinema.
Curators
Advithi Emmi is a visual artist, educator and curator based in Bangalore. Her installations and paintings are often self referential and have to do with intimate stories from her own life and women’s lives in general. She is currently involved in curating interventions to save the biosphere and water of the Doddagubbi Lake in Bangalore.
Dhanya Rajaram, is an art historian, writer, artist and curator based in Goa. She has worked for the Deep Focus magazine as assistant editor, coordinated for the Bar1 residency, and written for Art & Deal magazine. Her art often focuses on the philosophical construction of the self, domesticity and the lives of women.
Artists and Curators Alliance 
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