LDC Bangalore, INDIA 24 February 2019
It’s Dr Nicola Streeten here reporting from my trip to India, where I took the opportunity to host the launch of LDC INDIA, on Sunday 24 February, 12 midday-2.30pm. We were gratefully hosted by the wonderful Humming Tree venue, run by the dynamic Vidhi Kundan Jain. It was a lovely touch to see our name in lights at the entrance!
Bangalore seems to be a comics hotspot in India and we gathered an interesting and engaged audience.
Joining me for the afternoon were L to R below: Aleesha Nandhra also visiting from the UK, Priya Kuriyan, (me) and Rachita Taneja both based in Bangalore.
I introduced the event, talking about my own work and Laydeez do Comics and how my path has taken me to India and introduced me to these talented comics artists.
Aleesha Nandhra is an Illustrator and Printmaker from London, whose works manage to carefully tread the line between being whimsical and being highly emotionally evocative. A graduate of the Cambridge School of Art, Aleesha’s work manages to capture the spirit of several cultural phenomena, be they from home or abroad, and also manages to spark fun and life into objects that are otherwise considered mundane. She continues to create works on a freelance basis for clients including: Google, BuzzFeed, The Barbican and more.www.aleeshanandhra.com
instagram: @aleesha_n
Recent work for BuzzFeed: https://buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/pranavdixit/facebook-women-undercover-india
Priya Kuriyan is a Bangalore-based children’s book author, illustrator, animator and comics maker. Her most recently published books are ‘Ammachi’s glasses’ a wordless book for children and ‘Indira’, a graphic biography of India’s first woman prime minister.
kuriyanmakeskomics.tumblr.com
priyakuriyan.blogspot.com
Insta: priyakuriyan
Here is Priya below talking about the concerned reaction of some readers to her inclusion of a drawn bra in ‘Ammachi’s glasses’.
Rachita Taneja is a Bangalore-based webcomic artist. She is the creator of the webcomic Sanitary Panelsthat she began on Facebook in 2014. It isa feminist webcomic that uses Taneja’s distinctive stick figure style to comment on society and politics.
https://www.facebook.com/sanitarypanels/
Insta: sanitarypanels
Rachita talked about her background in activism and how she is using the comics form to communicate a feminist message.
It was a really enjoyable afternoon and particularly great to meet writer Ramya Mohanakrishnan who wrote up a great piece for First Post which you can access here:
https://www.firstpost.com/living/laydeez-do-comics-conversations-about-expression-censorship-at-a-community-for-female-illustrators-6199501.html
We are hopeful that LDC Bangalore will be a regular feature on the Humming Tree calendar of cultural events.
THANK YOU TO ALL WHO ATTENDED AND TO HUMMING TREE
