Interviews
Interview
Sandeep Hota In Conversation with Art Beyond Contemporary
Interviewed by Rageshree Ranade for Art Beyond Contemporary
Sandep Hota
Sandeep Hota is co-founder and managing director of Bhubaneswar Experimental Art and Design Studio (BEADS). A management professional turned cultural practitioner, he developed Bhubaneswar’s largest public art festival Bhubaneswar Art Trail 2018 and authored the discussion paper “Art in the Smart City.”
Across artistic and cultural practices such as visual art, Hindustani classical music, and craft, practice is not preparatory—it is generative. Whether through riyaaz, repeated gestures.
His work bridges policy and practice through collaborations with the Seoul International Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, lectures at Goethe Institute, and participation in the French Ministry of Culture’s ‘Itinéraire Culture’ programme in Paris.
Previously, he worked internationally with BP, Transport for London, Dentsu-Aegis, and Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation across multiple countries.
What makes this conversation essential is Sandeep’s role as a cultural catalyst, someone who operates at the intersection of artists, policymakers, and communities. In an era where cities across India grapple with rapid modernization while preserving cultural identity, his collaborative approach offers practical wisdom for cultural practitioners navigating similar challenges.
1. Having worked across countries with institutions like BP, Transport for London, Dentsu, and Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, you’ve operated within highly structured decision-making environments. When you moved back into the cultural sphere in Bhubaneswar, what was the first thing on the top of your mind that you wanted to do for your hometown?
Sandeep:
Honestly, there wasn’t a grand plan. It was quite serendipitous. I was in a transition phase after leaving the UK, taking a year off and trying to figure out whether I would move to Canada or the Middle East. Around that time, I met artist and sculptor Jagannath Panda, who had a foundation in Odisha and needed someone locally to help manage it.
What started as helping with funding gradually became something deeper. I spent much of 2017 volunteering and trying to make the foundation more meaningful and sustainable. Through that process, I began to understand contemporary art in Odisha in a way I hadn’t before.
Having lived outside the state for almost 15 years, I was often asked, “Where are you from?” And explaining Odisha usually required a reference point. I slowly began to feel that culture could provide a stronger identity, not just for me personally, but for the state itself.
So it wasn’t a predefined goal. It was more a growing desire to strengthen Odisha’s cultural identity, to build something contemporary that is rooted in tradition, but also confident globally.
2. As co-founder of BEADS, your engagement with Bhubaneswar wasn’t merely observational, it was infrastructural. When you began shaping platforms like the Bhubaneswar Art Trail, what was your goal? Were you responding to a cultural vacuum, or the lack of its visibility?
Sandeep:
I wouldn’t call it a vacuum. A lot was happening already, but it didn’t always feel connected or visible.
In 2017, when Bhubaneswar won the Smart City Award, there were many urban projects announced, including a mural program. That led to a bigger question for us: what really is public art? Who decides what belongs in public space? Is it limited to murals? What role does the community play?
Those conversations led us to write a white paper called Art in the Smart City. We also organized a two-day seminar with architects, writers, policymakers, and artists. Out of that came three proposals, one of them eventually became the Bhubaneswar Art Trail.
The Art Trail was not just conceived as an exhibition. It was a 1.3 km curated public art walk through the heritage core, moving through 17th-century temples, monasteries, homes, and living communities. The curatorial idea, “Navigation is Offline,” invited people to walk, physically and metaphorically, between past, present, and future.
The intention was to bring art, urban planning, and community into the same conversation, and to shift how people experienced the city.
3. Your discussion paper ‘Art in the Smart City’ suggests a deliberate attempt to insert art into policy discourse. What inspired you to write it?
Sandeep:
The Smart City moment felt like an opportunity. A lot of planning was being driven by engineers and bureaucrats, which is natural in such projects. But I felt artists should not come in at the end just to beautify infrastructure. They should be part of the thinking from the beginning.
Globally, there were examples of creative placemaking where art shaped how communities functioned. We felt Bhubaneswar could think along similar lines.
The paper tried to unpack a few things:
What public art really means
How other cities approach it
The role of arts councils
How community participation strengthens identity
We also proposed the idea of a formal Arts Council — something quite common in the US, Europe, and Australia.
At its core, the argument was simple: infrastructure without community is incomplete. Cities are not only about roads and drains; they are living spaces. If issues of migration, identity, and memory are ignored, fragmentation follows.
So the paper was really an attempt to start that conversation early, before decisions became irreversible.
4. Through your collaboration with InYoung Yeo at the Seoul International Biennale and your participation in Itinéraire Culture in Paris, you carried Bhubaneswar into international forums. In those moments, were you speaking as a representative of a city, a cultural strategist, or someone negotiating how a place is understood from the outside?
Sandeep:
In Seoul, I was still figuring things out. By the time I went to Paris, I was clearer about what we were doing.
At the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, we looked at how cities like Berlin, Seoul, and Bhubaneswar were negotiating identity and urban change. My presentation, “Rituals to Relevance,” reflected on how Bhubaneswar’s heritage core coexists with its planned modern city.
At Itinéraire Culture in Paris, I presented the Bhubaneswar Art Trail as a community-led public art case study. What made it meaningful for us was that residents opened their homes, temples, and monasteries. Before installing art, we worked on improving basic infrastructure- roads, lighting, sanitation; so the community was a stakeholder, not just a backdrop.
In those spaces, I wasn’t speaking only as a representative of a city. I was sharing a process- how art can mediate between heritage and modernity, policy and people.
And I was learning as well. For example, in France, state-supported art plays a significant role in shaping public life. That exposure broadened our thinking.
5. Because your work operates between artists and state structures, you often stand in the role of catalyst. How do you maintain balance so that facilitation enables artistic intent without limiting it?
Sandeep:
It is always a negotiation.
In the Art Trail, there were many stakeholders- artists, curators, government departments, police, traffic authorities, and the local community. Each had their own concerns.
My approach has been to keep the creative vision central. But to protect it, you need clarity upfront. We agreed on certain non-negotiables with authorities, no political propaganda, no explicit nudity, so that there wouldn’t be interference later. Within that framework, artists had space.
I lean toward interest-based negotiation rather than positional bargaining. Instead of insisting on positions, I try to understand what each side really wants. The government wants order. Artists want expression. Communities want respect and benefit. There is usually some overlap.
You cannot please everyone. The role of a catalyst is not to be liked by all, but to ensure the integrity of the project while reducing unnecessary conflict.
6. If BEADS were to evolve over the next decade, what would success look like for you personally?
Sandeep:
BEADS is really my long-term engagement with Odisha’s craft ecosystem. The state has 50 to 60 distinct craft traditions, and many are under strain, because of market shifts, lack of patronage, or structural gaps.
For me, success would mean that art and craft are not treated hierarchically. That craftspeople are seen as creative practitioners, not just producers of objects.
It would also mean policymakers begin to integrate craft into broader cultural frameworks. Young designers and artisans collaborate as equals. Documentation efforts like Odisha Craft Odyssey build sustained visibility and archives.
Ultimately, I would hope for a self-sustaining ecosystem, where communities thrive without constant external intervention.
If, in ten years, BEADS is less about rescue and more about celebration; where makers feel respected, empowered, and economically secure, that would feel like meaningful success.
Because cultural identity, in the end, is shaped by the hands that make it.
