Art as social responsibility

SIDDHARTHA V. SHAH is the Director of Education and Civic Engagement and Curator of South Asian Art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, USA. As a curator, he develops exhibitions that tell the stories of the artists, communities, and traditions of South Asia, as well as important moments in the history of the region, and what they reveal about nation-building and self-discovery. In his role as Director of Education and Civic Engagement, he strives to create alignment and synergy between the museum’s education and curatorial departments while focusing on community engagement and impactful programming. In part 2 of this interview, he speaks with VANESSA PATEL from the Heartfulness Institute about Yoga, meditation, art, and growing up.

Q: So, Siddhartha, you’re also a Yoga practitioner and meditator, and you have spoken about psychospiritual wellness. Can you share a little bit about how you have incorporated this into your work?

SS: I have been a pretty rigorous Yoga practitioner for twenty years, but I have basically stopped in the past year. Part of it was because of physical restrictions – I didn’t have a teacher here because of the pandemic, and I kept doing something wrong that was hurting my hip. No one was there to correct it, so even if I tried to do something simple, the next day I had pain.

I also felt that I was too addicted to it. I understand that doing Yoga means I have a better day, but it got to the point where I could not have a good day if I did not do Yoga. That’s when I realized, “My relationship to this is not healthy.” But that’s also part of the practice – knowing when to tell myself that I need a break, because this is not doing what I need.

Regarding meditation, it so happened that the week after lockdown started in March 2020, I started a meditation challenge for our staff. I said, “Okay everybody, the universe is telling us to go inside, so that’s what we are going to do.” For ten days I sent videos to them – just ten minutes of meditation each day for ten days. More than 70 people signed up, and some people said they wanted to keep going. So I said, “We’ll do a 21-day challenge,” and 40 people signed up for that. Since then, we do meditation every Monday morning before the work week starts, and every Friday afternoon at the end of the work week. It is open to anybody who wants to drop in, so I always have my Google Meet open. Sometimes nobody is there and I still attend, leaving my camera on, and I sit for twenty minutes. Other times, people come and join. It is just a service I now offer to staff.

Q: I appreciate the sense that there are no expectations, no demands. If you feel the connection, the room is open. To me, that feels like true service, because there are no expectations in the intention behind your gesture.

You’ve given me a 360-degree glimpse into your work world, although I’m sure there is a lot more that you are involved in. I know you started as a gallerist so I would love to know more about your journey, and the struggles you faced. Do you feel you are now in your dream job?

SS: When I was younger, my dream job was to be an art dealer. I did that and thought, “Okay, now I have my dream, but I am not done. Now what do I do?” That dream career ended years ago. I would say the struggle was mostly internal, but there were some external challenges. It was a different path than a lot of South Asians in the United States. My father and brother are both physicians. Most of the Indians we knew were either physicians or engineers, and that just wasn’t the path for me. I always felt supported by my parents, but there were a lot of questions like, “What do you do?”, “What do you study?”, and “What are you going to do with that?”

There was one pivotal moment around the age of 25, when I was a manager of a gallery in California. I was really unhappy in my job.
I called my dad, crying on the phone, and said to him, “I don’t know what to do.”
He said to me, “I don’t know your field of study. If you were a physician I could guide you, but you made this choice for yourself and I can’t help you here. You need to decide what you are going to do.”
And that was so empowering for me. I realized he was right – “I chose this path, and I am going to figure this out.” That was a moment of real empowerment.

I have had many different careers, and my path has unfolded because I said yes to the right opportunities. I have never had a vision of where I am ultimately going to be. I never decided that museums were where I wanted to be. It just felt right, and I said yes to the opportunity. That happened with the Ph.D. as well. I had never formally studied Indian art, and I only wanted to study with one professor, Dr. Vidya Dehejia. So I applied to the program, and thought, “If she takes me, I’ll go, and if she doesn’t, I’ll continue here.” She took me on, and my whole life changed. Suddenly I was a student again at 35. Everyone else was in their early twenties!

Q: And how has your experience been in the curatorial world of art galleries and museums, amongst that community of people?

SS: It’s been different every time I have curated something, because it depends so much on what you’re working with. Here at PEM, curating has been such a joy because I get to work with an outrageously rich collection. It’s great fun. It’s the largest collection of modern Indian art outside India, and certainly one of the most important collections of modern Indian art in the world.

I have had many different careers,
and my path has unfolded because
I said yes to the right opportunities.

If I were curating it in India, I would do it in a different way, but I have to curate for an American audience that is not in a major city. So, how to talk about Indian masterpieces by a collection of artists that most people have never heard of here? The challenge is to frame it in a narrative that the public is going to understand. I speak in very general terms, so that the story of India replicates the story of America. For example, there is a version of the Ramayana that, depending on how you enunciate it, is both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. It’s a Pallava-era poem by the author Dandin. The work has been lost, but apparently it composed a version of two different epics with the exact same text. This is how I speak about India’s diversity, and unity in diversity. Part of what makes India so unique are the different types of people there, but, like America, the biggest challenge to harmony has been the country’s diversity. I speak about it in these ways, and it is great fun, as you can apply the concept to India and America.

Q: That is a great way to make it relatable. Ultimately, art is something that needs to be relatable because, as you said, so many people feel it is beyond them. You have made it really accessible and activated it in so many ways for your community. Thank you so much, Siddhartha.

SS: Thank you, and I hope to see you here at the museum.