Surviving the pandemic has forced artists to make a virtue of being online

How artists and institutions have stepped into the digital universe with great resilience during the pandemic, even as they long for the rush of going live again

In October 2020, folk artist Jatwang Wangsa, from Arunachal Pradesh’s Wancho community, donned an outfit usually reserved for special occasions — a traditional costume complete with headdress. He took a two-hour trek from his remote village of Kamhua Noknu to the district office in Longding tehsil. The occasion? A talk with the audience of ‘Indigenous Wisdom’, an online series organised by the Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC), where he would share the cultural practices of his community. The district office was his only access to the Internet.

Meanwhile, in urban India, artists reached online audiences with greater ease, as virtual performances, talks and art walkthroughs became the norm, and Zoom, YouTube, Facebook Live, and Instagram the new venues. Soon after the nationwide lockdown was announced in March 2020, Mumbai’s National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) launched ‘NCPA@home’, a digital series that showcased signature performances from their archives. Youth theatre festival Thespo, fuelled by the energy of its tech-savvy young performers, livestreamed performances and created its own podcast and online community network. The Museum of Art & Photography (MAP) in Bengaluru, a work-in-progress, deferred its physical launch and instead showcased its collection digitally. The Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) garnered over 27 million virtual views. And to the joy of its undying fans, music festival NH7 Weekender was livestreamed to an audience of over 65,000 (with an optional bartending service provided in the safety of viewers’ homes).