An artist initiative based in New Delhi, India working with photography and bookmaking.
PHOTOBOOK PROGRAM
Valentina Abenavoli
Radha Pandey
Anshika Varma
1st December – 11th December
GOA VELHA, INDIA
THE PHOTOBOOK INTENSIVE is a collaborative workshop concentrated on the creation of a final artist book or a dummy, taking participants through different stages of the inception of a book. The workshop is focussed on locating individual voices and formats of authorship of the book, bringing together intention, creative expression and the practicalities of the life imagined from the book.
Over the process of 10 days, three instructors will work with participants to investigate and flesh out the world that their books address. Broken into different modules : Intention, Tools and Language and Making your Artist Book we will work both in groups and through one-on-one sessions with each instructor to be able to truly engage and experiment with the possibilities of the book structure for each project.
“How can we work with the language of photography to help bring ideas and thoughts together… to converse, research and understand the world we occupy?”
Officiated in 2019, Offset Projects is a curatorial proposition by artist Anshika Varma to create channels of engagement in photography and book making outside of the fragilities of art echo chambers. The initiative exists within the form of a fluid collective, inviting collaborators to play and experiment within its unstructured identity.
The Offset Pitara, our travelling library, focuses on voices from the Global South, and its diaspora, with expanded programs and exhibitions, artist talks, workshops, residencies, curated reading rooms and collaborative exercises in publishing. Our publishing ethos comes from the urgency to work with the book as a site of companionship and support, centering relationship-building as the core tenet of our publishing practice.
We believe that story telling lies at the heart of human creative energy and wish to make a space for collective engagement, meaningful critique and reflective inquiry.
Our Programs
Offset Pitara- The Travelling Library
A curated collection of photo-books from South Asia and Beyond carefully put together through founder Anshika Varma’s private collection and contributions by artists in the region.
Offset Consultancy and Bookshop
Over the past few years we have worked with artists to help with the various aspects of publishing and distribution for self and independently produced photo-books and artist books. Write to us to book a consult.
Workshops and Residencies
The Offset Studio organizes regular workshops on various aspects of book making, editing and residencies for research on subjects related to photography and visual media.
Education, Talks and Programs
Offset also works in collaboration with various institutions and educational initiatives to organize for talks and programs that look at manners where visual media can meet the various intersections in multidisciplinary mediums of research.
Offset Events
| Artist Talk- Serena Chopra On the Launch of Majnu Ka Tilla Alliance Francaise, New Delhi | Book Reading and Artist Talk Sharing Session with the Tibetan Community Delhi & Dharamshala | “Evidence And Erasure” Panel Discussion on publishing as resistance Arles Book Fair, France |
| Offset Bookshop Arles Book Fair, France | Offset Pitara – a curated reading room Bangalore International Center Bengaluru | |
Offset Publications
Guftgu by Offset Projects
Guftgu / Guft-gu:/ गुफ्तगू / گفتگو
Editor/Curator – Anshika Varma
Published by Offset Projects
Hard Case deconstructed photobook featuring chapters by 10 contemporary photographers from India, Nepal and Pakistan.
Adira Thekkuveettil Diwas Raja KC
Amarnath Praful Jaisingh Nageshwaran
Arko Datto Nandita Raman
Arun Vijai Mathavan Nida Mehboob
Cheryl Mukherjee Uma Bista
The Guftgu book published by Offset Projects looks at the interrogations and practices of 10 contemporary photographers in South Asia presented as individual chapters designed in context to each artists practice and process. The works featured look at inquiries on identity formation and history building through perspectives of gender, caste and inheritance among many others. Emerging out of dialogues with practitioners when our world seemed restrained physically, the works incorporated in this curation expand on a growing visual language within South Asia and its diaspora. It offers a complex study of a land in transit, triggered by personal responses of photographers to their contemporary climates.
Offset Pitara at India Art Fair 2020
Art book vs. book on art
Jul 31, 2022
Exploring book as an art object, in contrast with book as a medium of documentation: in conversation with Anshika Varma, founder of Offset Projects, New Delhi, India.
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Questioning photography with Guftgu
June 7, 2022
A book in the form of zines, Guftgu uses the history of photography to refute accepted ideas of identity. An essay by Somak Ghosal in the Mint Lounge.
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India’s Traveling Library Is Bringing Rare Photobooks to the Masses
Jul 8, 2022
Each Saturday, Delhi’s art enthusiasts made the most of northern India’s short-lived spring season by visiting Sunder Nursery, a restored 16th century heritage park and arboretum.
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Offset Projects 