AT A GLANCE
Junuka Deshpande
Area of Practice:
Image-making, Observation, Drawing, Documentary
OVERVIEW
Junuka’s primary interest is in the practice of observation. The practice inspires her to engage in the process of image-making through drawing, films, and sound. She explores image-making and image construction as sense-making processes in her practice as an artist and an educator. Her professional journey as a filmmaker and community worker working with indigenous communities has made her question implicit notions of self and hierarchy embedded in creative-perceptive processes. In her teaching practice, she explores methods and forms of recording, documenting, interpreting, and understanding place and self through artistic, reflective, and collaborative research. She also leads thesis projects at SMI that engage with places and communities.
EDUCATION
MA in Design and Arts Education, SMI, Bangalore
BDes in Film and Video Communication, NID, Ahemdabad
WORK EXPERIENCE
Faculty
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, Karnataka
Faculty (Film and Communication) at DJ Academy of Design, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu
Project Associate
Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai and Nicobar Islands
Media Associate
National Centre for Advocacy Studies, Pune
INTEREST AREAS
Image-making, Observation, Drawing, Documentary
CURRENT PRACTICE AT SRISHTI
As an academician, I extend my creative practice in the classrooms and project spaces. I also draw from these collaborative spaces to develop creative work in my professional practice. I facilitate studios across disciplines around the ideas of Observation, image-making and place-making. I also teach Practice based research for image practitioners.
TEACHING PORTFOLIO
My teaching portfolio contains images from the field and artistic outcome by the students
CREATIVE PRACTICE & OUTREACH
My practice as an artist and an educator centres repetitive and iterative image-making and image-construction as sense-making processes that progressively deepen one’s affective and epistemic engagement with place and people. My current practice-led enquiry is about discovering ways to understand self-reflexivity while engaging in such repetitive processes of observation and image-making through drawing and moving image that manifest my relationships with my inner and outer world.
I also learn and practice hindustani classical music which often intertwines with my explorations.
