Kasauli Art Centre 1976–1991
Belinder Dhanoa
June 2023 • 9.5 x 7.5 inches • 440 pages
This book on the Kasauli Art Centre, located at Ivy Lodge, Kasauli – which functioned as a centre for the arts and was actively engaged in numerous art activities for a decade and a half, from 1976 to 1991 – contextualizes the events held there within the broader framework of the cultural scene in India and examines the idea of art camps through the particularity of what took place at Kasauli. Developments in the visual arts, experiments in performance, seminars held at Ivy Lodge and the inception of the Journal of Arts & Ideas are among the subjects discussed.
Given the paucity of written documentation, the author’s research is partly reliant on interviews and conversations with participants and her analytical readings of these narratives. The text is written in brief sections in several registers, and includes the use of devices from fiction writing, including the mediating of time between an event and its recall.
The book also has valuable contributions from several artists and scholars who participated in the events, and a detailed timeline of the many art camps, performances, seminars and discussions held at Kasauli. It is richly illustrated with images of artworks and photographs.
Belinder Dhanoa is a writer of fiction and nonfiction, with training in Visual and Cultural Studies. She currently lives in New Delhi, where she teaches Literary Art/Creative Writing at the Ambedkar University Delhi.
To order copies of the book, please write to Tulika Books at
sales@tulikabooks.in, tulikadelhi@gmail.com
To buy copies online:
In India and South Asia
Tulika Books, https://tulikabooks.in/catalog/product/view/id/22421
Rest of the world
Columbia University Press, https://cup.columbia.edu/ (available November 2023 onwards)