Founder: Ruby Jagrut
Ekla Cholo Re by the poet, musician and artist Ravindra Nath Tagore suddenly hit me in 2020 and kept humming me back in a loop for some time. Our foundation, Abir India, was intended to support young and emerging artists, which had given me strong beliefs and generous validation, but here we ventured into territory we had not previously considered. We stumbled into something very interesting and exciting.
Like most art houses, we began with the thought of having a blog or a newsletter talking about the contemporary art scene in India. But as we started discussing the idea, we could see many things, for example, the gaps, the audience, the emerging art market, and the connection with design and architecture. We decided to give it a go.
Today we complete our 2 years of Abir Pothi, India’s digital art newspaper and are very proud of its journey. We look back with amazement that we started this during the most uncertain times when the pandemic was at its worst and challenges were many. But each time, even facing the worst odds, we believed in the importance of enhancing the conversation around art for different sets of audiences beyond the existing ones which include new and emerging artists, art lovers, students and bringing more people inside the polyphonic tent to hear, discuss, debate around art. Our continuous quest has been to bring art and aesthetics to the centre of our consciousness and coverage.
We are different because we are daily. Also because we haven’t lost the magazine touch as our long-form articles and interviews have long shelf values. We capture what is trending in the world. Also spot the many little mutinies happening in the new and emerging spaces along with celebrating India’s great gifts to the art world, both modern and classical.
In the process, we see a decent community of art joining our conversations. We have many artists, writers, curators, gallerists, architects and designers talking to and writing for us. And our stories resonate with audiences in India and around the world.
This is to thank you, for being part of our journey. Your participation, engagement, feedback, encouragement and criticism mean a lot to us. We remain on a continuous learning curve because of that, and I am happy to see the evolution of our content, style and format, which is not just to fit into the language of art, but also navigate through the maize of multimedia digital platforms we reach you on. This is also to express gratitude to our promoters, the B Safal Group, for their unwavering faith in both abirpothi.com and abirspace.com.
