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Statement of the artist for the «Postcard Project» of the House of World Cultures ´LIFE 1- Life for me is when dialogue between people becomes 2 way and interactive, respects and invites multiple points of view. Are we communicating? / Listening is the beginning of communication. WORK 2 - Art that emphasizes a process of engagement with socio-political and cultural issues. 3 - Art that emerges out of a dialogical process and shared visions and experiences. 4 - Process that encourages interaction with broader and diverse people about issues and questions relevant to their lives. 5 - Art that can shift an understanding to art-making as a process rather than to an object alone. 6 – Art-making process that challenges the cultural conservatism and the market which measures social progress in terms of monetary gains rather than the quality of human life in totality.´ Navjot Altaf, 2007 Navjot Altaf, born in 1949 in Meerut, studied at the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai. Her interactive installations with video/audio/text include, in 2003: Displaced Self (Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai; Art Residence Herzliya, Tel Aviv); in 2001–03: Three Halves (Hope University, Liverpool; Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai; Bolton Museum and Galleries, Lancashire); Between Memory and History, ‘Bombay/Mumbai 1992–2001’ in Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis (Tate Modern, London) and BBK Kunst Forum (Dusseldorf); Life in the Time of Cholera (Apeejay Media Gallery, Delhi); Eighth Havana Biennale; in 1994: Links destroyed and rediscovered (Gallery 7/Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai). The artist has initiated a site-oriented collaborative project with artists from the villages of Bastar, Chattisgarh. Her joint expositions include: Interventions/Interrogations: Collaboration as a Strategy in Indian Contemporary Art, which includes Nalpar and Pilla Gudi (at Kondagaon, Bandhapara, Sambalpur, Kusma); Modes of Parallel Practice: Ways of World Making (Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai); First Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (Japan). Navjot Altaf lives and works in Mumbai and Bastar.