BlueJackal is an independent platform for engaging with, creating and publishing visual narratives, comics, picture books and initiating dialogue and learning within these contexts through interactive programs. It is currently run by Shivangi Singh, Shefalee Jain, Lokesh Khodke and Sharvari Deshpande.

BlueJackal was born in 2015 of a desire for, as well as the ever receding possibility of, togetherness. We see coming together with all its temporariness, contradictoriness, conflict as well as possibilities. As writers, artists, researchers we have often felt compelled by and yet wary of what constitutes the 'limits' or the defining borders of our callings. We have realized both, the need to draw these strategic boundaries and the will to dissolve them. BlueJackal is a platform for exploring this conundrum in its creative, political and philosophical dimensions. We are interested in seeing what 'contamination' and 'cross breeding' through unforeseen associations can bring to this platform.

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TEAM

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Shivangi Singh is an artist and illustrator based in New Delhi, India. She has a Bachelor's degree in Fine
Arts from College of Art, Delhi and studied Master’s in Visual Arts from School of Culture and Creative
Expressions, Ambedkar University, Delhi. She has interned as an illustrator for children books with
Eklavya Foundation, a publication house in Bhopal in 2014 and has contributed in their three magazines
Chakmak, Sandarbh and Srote. Her interests include illustration, curation and education. Between
2015-17 she worked at The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), a not-for-profit arts
organisation in Delhi and was responsible for developing, archiving and coordinating their annual
educational programmes, grants and workshops. She has curated two exhibitions, Impulses in Drawing
(2015) and At the turn of a Page (2016) at Vadehra Art Gallery, Delhi and was part of the curatorial team
at the gallery. She has co-curated a two part show, stutter in your eloquence at BC Gallery, Kochi (2014)
and stutter in your eloquence II at Ambedkar University, Delhi (2015). In 2017 she worked on a documentation project with Riyaaz (an academy of illustration in Hoshangabad). Since 2018 she has been freelancing on research, writing and illustration projects. She currently works at Artreach India, and manages their various teaching programmes. You can see some of her work on her website.

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Shefalee Jain is an artist and illustrator based in New Delhi, India. She taught as Assistant Professor of Visual Art at the School of Culture and Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University(AUD), Delhi from 2012-22.

Her research interests lie in the area of visual culture, particularly in the study of the processes of othering and pathologization of bodies as well as the continuous re iteration and construction of the ‘normal body’ within various contexts such as modern medicine, advertisement, education and language. She has a chapter titled ‘ Viklang: Performing language and cripping modernity through translation’ in the recently published book, Disability in Translation: The Indian Experience, edited by Someshwar Sati and G.J.V. Prasad, published by Routledge. 2019. She is pursuing her Practice-based PhD in Visual Art from Ambedkar University Delhi.

Her first solo exhibition titled Painting Dis-ease was held at The Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S.U., Baroda, India in Feb. 2012 and her second solo titled Landscape and Fall was held at the Ambedkar University Delhi in Feb. 2018. She was in New York as an Apexart fellow for the month of June 2015. Shefalee has been a contributor to Chakmak, a children’s magazine and Sandarbh, a magazine for educators published by Eklavya Publications, Bhopal, India. She has jointly illustrated (with Lokesh Khodke) Mother, a poem by Kancha Illiah, as part of a project, Different Tales: Stories from Marginal Cultures and Regional Languages (conducted by Anveshi research centre for women’s studies, Hyderabad, India) The book is published as part of a series, by DC books and Mango, Kottayam, Kerala, India 2008. She is also the author and illustrator of a children’s book Ten (Tulika books), and has made illustrations for the first eight books in the series titled Adventures of Aditi and her Friends by Suniti Namjoshi, published by Tulika Publishers, India. You can see her work on her website.

 

Lokesh Khodke is an independent artist, illustrator based in New Delhi, India. He currently is Director of Education, ArtFirst, India. Lokesh has worked for children’s books as an illustrator with publications such as Aam Ke Sir Pe’(Hindi) written by Susheel Joshi, published by Eklavya Publications, Bhopal, 2015, Oont Ka Phool (Hindi) written by Prabhat, published by Eklavya publications, 2015, Mother written by Kancha Ilaiah and co illustrated with Shefalee Jain, as part of a project Different Tales: Stories from Marginal Cultures and Regional Languages(Kottayam: DC Books, 2008). He contributed illustrations to one of the stories in a collection of short stories called Chudail Ka Nashta, by Rinchin, published by Eklavya, 2019. He also contributes to the Hindi children’s magazine Chakmak, by Eklavya Publications. Lokesh comics books are - Chudail, a Hindi comic, written and illustrated by Lokesh, published by BlueJackal, Nov. 2019. Phoren Soap a serialised comics based on a translation from Gujarati short story by Bhupen Khakhar, published in Verite 02, Comics For Adults - A comics anthology, edited by Bharath Murthy, published by Comix India, 2019. However Long, illustrated by Lokesh, written by Kyle Houston, published in UK by Sliced Quarterly, Volume #3 - An experimental comics anthology. Act 1: Letters to ‘O’, written and illustrated by Lokesh, published by BlueJackal in print as well as on web, 2017-18. Images of his paintings have been published in the book Articulating Resistance- Art and Activism, edited by Prof. Shivaji Panikkar & Prof. Deeptha Achar, Tulika Books, 2012. His works were published in the South Asian magazine Himal - special issue on caste, April 2010. His solo exhibition was held in 2009 at the Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai. He has participated in several group exhibitions, artists’ camps and artists’ residency programs in India and overseas. He has worked as  Project Coordinator for 'Writing Art' of Asia Art Archive for three years (June 2014 - Nov 2016). He has completed his Masters of Visual Arts (Painting), from Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University of Baroda in 2004.

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Sharvari Deshpande is an artist/ illustrator/ designer currently living in Pune. She has completed BA in Visual Arts from M.S. University and currently pursuing Masters in Gender, Culture and Development Studies from Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU). She is interested in developing works with the intersections of visual studies and gender studies. Her fascination with stories/ narratives resides in their ability to present ideas and ask questions in a broader sense as well as with smaller yet important details. 

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contact US

 

Email us at bluejackalhere@gmail.com

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