As Khoj enters its 25th year in 2022, we look back at the history of how Khoj began with the purpose of enabling young practitioners to create art in an open-ended and experimental manner. And as we look to the future while Khoj embeds itself into an ever-shifting hybrid landscape, our role remains to provide both a digital and physical space to artists, independent of formal and commercial institutions.
At the turn of the pandemic, Khoj felt the innate need to extend its role from physical to a virtual space and restructure its digital presence to provide greater accessibility to its audience and artists alike. Thus culminating in a new website and visual identity.
The website launch was held on the 16th of December at the premises, and musician Flexi K curated a set for the evening.
Designers Ananya Khaitan (graphic designer and founder of Novel) and Hamsa Ganesh (web designer and founder of Thoughtput) came on board to create Khoj’s new website that is built to serve as an institutional archive, and was the culmination of 18 months of work and over 46 hours of conversations.
The site reflects Khoj’s emphasis on community engagement and socially-engaged art practice. Khoj’s present programming can now be seen in the context of its past, tracing curatorial threads through the years. Crucially, Khoj’s interest in art’s intersections with other disciplines or thematics has also been highlighted.
The new Khoj website has transitioned to be the digital platform that captures the shift in society and is better suited for a contemporary art organisation of and for the future.
Khoj’s new website is supported by the Goethe Institut’s International Relief Fund 2020, The Ford Foundation and The Prince Claus Fund.