Tanvi Mishra

An Online Public Talk on ASAP | art: Chobi Mela: Forging Political Solidarities Date: Saturday, 2nd May 2026 Time: 6PM IST Register via link in bio! ASAP | art invites you to an online panel discussion with Sarker Protick, Munem Wasif and Tanvi Mishra, moderated by Vincent Hasselbach. One month before Bangladesh’s long-awaited elections, the Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography opened to the public in Dhaka, marking twenty-five years since its first iteration. (Re)turning to key themes of the wound, ecology and borders, the curatorial response drew from Bangladesh’s youth-led uprising, amidst disenfranchisement of citizens on the other side of the border, and in the context of continuing genocide and ongoing wars in Palestine, Sudan and Iran. In this discussion, the festival’s curators will reflect on their process of shaping a photography festival in a time marked by uncertainty. Revisiting their recent collaboration, the speakers look at what the gathering may have revealed in common from the Nile to Beirut, or from Gaza to Karachi, returning eventually to the streets of Dhaka where, just recently, rupture marked a possibility for renewal. Image credit: "Body exercises as part of Kriti: A Workshop on Creative Expression." (Photograph by Sheba Chhachhi. New Delhi, 1983. Image courtesy of the artist.) The editorial work at ASAP | art is supported by The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts

My mamma retired ten years ago. Ever since, I’ve been thinking of how women and men age so differently. (But that’s a story for another day.) I remember her saying then that after dedicating her life to medicine her whole life, she was ready for a new chapter. A few years ago she took up painting. She diligently goes to art class, and does what every good student does – practice, practice, practice. One of my friends said—your mother has what many of us lack—patience. Her artwork is her reward. I think about that, and the joy of developing a skill and craft that you love later in life. For it to be unencumbered by factors like careerism, recognition or monetary returns. For me, I am most happy to find a fellow lover of arts in the family, especially in a family where someone once said expressing some disdain in my choices – that I’m wasting my time as there is not a creative bone in anyone’s body in our family. Glad mamma Mishra has proven this ossified cultural theory wrong! Here is her latest work, drawn from images of the partition trains that brought scores of people across the border. This autobiographical sketch speaks of a time whose personal memories our families grew up with, listening to our grandparents recount their journeys. I am both in awe and thrilled with her new found obsession, eagerly awaiting all that is to come from these quarters!

An Online Public Talk on ASAP | art: Chobi Mela: Forging Political Solidarities Date: Saturday, 2nd May 2026 Time: 6PM IST Register via link in bio! ASAP | art invites you to an online panel discussion with Sarker Protick, Munem Wasif and Tanvi Mishra, moderated by Vincent Hasselbach. One month before Bangladesh’s long-awaited elections, the Chobi Mela International Festival of Photography opened to the public in Dhaka, marking twenty-five years since its first iteration. (Re)turning to key themes of the wound, ecology and borders, the curatorial response drew from Bangladesh’s youth-led uprising, amidst disenfranchisement of citizens on the other side of the border, and in the context of continuing genocide and ongoing wars in Palestine, Sudan and Iran. In this discussion, the festival’s curators will reflect on their process of shaping a photography festival in a time marked by uncertainty. Revisiting their recent collaboration, the speakers look at what the gathering may have revealed in common from the Nile to Beirut, or from Gaza to Karachi, returning eventually to the streets of Dhaka where, just recently, rupture marked a possibility for renewal. Image credit: Unhealed Beneath Grieving Skies (2025–ongoing) by Sumi Anjuman, image courtesy of the artist. The Romantic Documentarian (exhibition title), 1950–1990, courtesy of Amanul Huq/Drik. Untitled (Young boy with double bass), c. 1965, from House of Bondage by Ernest Cole, courtesy of the Ernest Cole Family Trust. The editorial work at ASAP | art is supported by The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts

Only half a year late to post about the publication of my essay “Visibility and Refusal” in @foam_magazine anniversary edition “Test of Time.” Adapted for publication from my keynote delivered earlier last year at @rijksmuseum , this essay holds a small portion of my current preoccupations with the image, it’s curious limitations and it’s capacity to be read and re-read anew. Grateful to @jennysmets for first asking me to speak at the seminar “Future Memories” earlier last year and opening the possibilities to develop an open, meandering prompt. Some of these free-wheeling moments allow you to think concretely alongside the words of others who leave a latent mark on your thinking. This piece continues to evolve as I’m experimenting with an expanded version of it in my course “Public Opinion: should curatorial practice serve a social function” at @icp thanks to the invitation by @dariatuminas . Excited to open up parts of these ruminations by interweaving the works of other writers and thinkers and of course discussions from the participants of the class. As someone who never went to school for photography or arts for that matter, this is my classroom. Learning by doing, stumbling, imagining and experimenting. It doesn’t always make perfect sense but grateful to those that give the space to build these pieces. Many thanks also to @katyhundertmark for the invitation to publish and archive the keynote and for editing alongside Lujaina Ihab. Worth checking out the issue for all the wonderful contributions by friends and colleagues, on images that they think will stand the test of time!

We are pleased to share that Soumya Sankar Bose @soumyasankarbose will be in conversation with curator & writer, Tanvi Mishra @tanvimishra , on his practice and his upcoming solo exhibition 𝘞𝘦 𝘕𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴, next Saturday, 4 April at Experimenter – Ballygunge Place, Kolkata, 6 pm onwards. If you are in Kolkata, register now by clicking on the link in bio to know more about Bose’s new body of work and how it expands on broader themes and concerns that permeate his practice. Limited seats available. Images: 3) Tanvi Mishra. Photo credit: Roger Anis

Thanks to Vivien and Stefan @seezeenphoto for inviting me to pen some thoughts on my practice along with my contemporaries. Imperfect and evolving, I’m grateful for these opportunities that help me identify my own concerns at a moment in time. See Zeen is an online photography magazine that profiles 9 curators and 9 artists, each of whom is identified by one of the curators. The interview, along with that of Yuting Duan and Darmon Chang has also been translated for Fanshe magazine in China. Nice to mark my first publication in Chinese! Do check out their archive on their website, excerpts here, full interview link in bio.

Our team is super excited to invite you to join us for a conversation around The Songs of Our People (Volume 02), a moving and rigorously observed work by everyone's favourite photographer, Anurag Banerjee, that traces the origins of Meghalaya’s music scene - its sounds, solidarities, and the lives that shaped it!! Anurag will be in conversation with Tanvi Mishra, photo editor, curator, writer, and educator, whose work critically examines representation, refusal, and the ethics of image-making. Register for your spot using the link in our bio. Tickets are redeemable against the purchase of any books of your choosing.

𝘾𝙝𝙤𝙗𝙞 𝙈𝙚𝙡𝙖 𝙓𝙄 | 𝙋𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙡 𝘿𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙪𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 Date: 19 January 2025 (Monday) 🕕 6:00 PM onwards 📍 Joyeeta Foundation ‘𝘼𝙧𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙊𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙬𝙞𝙨𝙚' This panel brings together Sneha Raghavan (@asiaartarchive ), Diwas Raja KC (@nepalpiclibrary ), Maryam Rahman (Estate of Lala Rukh), and Naeem Mohaiemen in conversation with Tanvi Mishra to reflect on alternative approaches to archiving social histories. Moving across the personal, curatorial, and artistic, the discussion asks how archives can reveal suppressed narratives, sustain collective memory, and offer tools for political imagination. What does it mean to make visible what was once hidden? How do images shift meaning over time, through absence, recovery, and adjacency? The conversation considers history through the lens of the lost and found. 𝘈𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴: Sneha Raghavan(@sneha.ragavan ) is a Senior Researcher and Projects Lead at Asia Art Archive in India, working on artist archives and art-historical research. Diwas Raja KC(@diwasraja ) is a Kathmandu-based researcher and curator at Nepal Picture Library, focused on visual archives of historically obscured communities. Maryam Rahman(@_maryam_rahman ) is a multidisciplinary artist and the custodian of the Estate of Lala Rukh, working across drawing, video, installation, and archival practice. Naeem Mohaiemen(@naeem_mohaiemen ) is a Bangladeshi artist, writer, and filmmaker whose work examines socialist histories, borders, and political memory across film, photography, and text. Moderated by Tanvi Mishra(@tanvimishra ), curator, writer, and photo editor whose work engages with politics, representation, and visual culture.

Find our interview with Tanvi Mishra @tanvimishra in see-zeen issue #18, a special issue with 9 interviews with thought leaders in photography and the work of 19 photographers, online now. magazine for contemporary photography or link in bio Tanvi Mishra works with images as a photo editor, curator, writer and educator. Her areas of interest include rights and representation in image-making, refusal as visual strategy and the notion of truth/fiction in photography. Her recent curatorial projects include „Isadora Romero: Fume, Root, Seed“ at Musee Neimenster, Luxembourg (2025) and Photo Kathmandu, Nepal (2025) and „Moving Definitions: an Invitation to re-view“ at Recontres d’Arles (2023), France. She has served as the Creative Director of The Caravan, a journal of politics and culture and on the editorial team of PIX, a Southasian publication and display practice. Mishra was an invited curator at Photo Kathmandu (2016) and the Breda Photo biennial (2022), and part of the curatorial team of Delhi Photo Festival (2013, 2015). Her writing on photography is published widely including in FOAM Magazine, NO NIIN Magazine, 1000 Words, Aperture and the Routledge Companion to Global Photographies. She has taught with photo.circle, Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, the International Center of Photography and VII Academy, and conducted independent workshops on publishing as practice. Her work across curating, writing and editing is premised at the intersection of politics, culture and social justice. Her working method foregrounds building kinship and solidarity, as tools to collectively imagine alternate, reparative futures. Exhibition Rights of Passage at Chobi Mela - International Festival of Photography Bangladesh @chobimela in Dhaka, Bangladesh - January 16 - January, 31, 2026 #photomagazine #interview #curator #southasianphotography

What compels the journey against the established cartographic order, whether for political dissidents or asylum seekers? Can lives lived, and kinships formed, along the border refuse the hostility that its structure imposes? Does mutation hold liberatory potential—when avatars break the siege or disobedient ecologies sprout to reveal connections across contested sites? Situating these selected image-works adjacently, we look to redefine the 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴 across lines of control. In an era of unhindered violence, who determines the 𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳? Who is the 𝘢𝘳𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦 deciding the distinctions between a hostage and a political prisoner, an economic migrant and an illegal immigrant? What does it mean to 𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳—in rest and resistance—across, and despite, territorial confines? As we look at these movements collectively, we ask, 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦? Rights of Passage, curated by Tanvi Mishra(@tanvimishra ), is one of the group shows being presented at Chobi Mela XI bringing together 7 artists and collectives. Participating artists and collectives: · Asia Art Archive (ft. the archives of Sheba Chhachhi and Lala Rukh) (@asiaartarchive ) · Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme (@basel.abb & @ruanne.ar ) · Felipe Romero Beltran (@feliperomerobeltran ) · Hoda Afshar (@hodaafshar ) · Moonis Ahmad Shah(@moonisahmadshah ) · Sheida Soleimani(@sheidajanam ) · Sumi Anjuman(@sumi_anjuman ) Learn more about the exhibition from our website: chobimela.org

[ES] Estamos muy emocionadas de compartir esta reseña sobre Un movimiento para poder verte, publicada en la edición de diciembre del British Journal of Photography @bjp1854 . Una lectura sensible y generosa escrita por @dismy para la sección Bookshelf. Gracias por acompañar y sostener este libro en su recorrido por el mundo. [EN] We are very excited to share this review of Moving, to See You, published in the December issue of the British Journal of Photography @bjp1854 A thoughtful and generous reading written by @dismy for the Bookshelf section. Thank you for accompanying and supporting this book as it continues its journey in the world.