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Episode 179 of The Naina Experience Podcast is with Hiya Thacker, a Bachelor of Arts student in Melbourne with one semester left. She is curating her first exhibition, “You’re Indian, Aren’t You?”, with six photographers and 50 images. It opens on 7 November at the XYZ photography gallery in Docklands, Melbourne, and runs until 20 December.
I invited Hiya on after she reached out about the show. Her own work already represents where she comes from, and I wanted to know how a student ends up curating an exhibition of Indian photographers before she has finished her degree. Adelaide has plenty of Indians with the standing to do something like this, and nobody has. Hiya did it.
Curating without the experience
Hiya learned about art curation in her Art Market and Methods subject. She assumed it was something you do much later, with a lot more years behind you. So when the gallery owner asked her to curate the show, she had very little idea what the job involved. She is a maker. She crochets, takes photographs and makes things. She has never handled someone else’s work like this, so she keeps asking herself whether she is being respectful enough. She wants to bring her own style to the show while letting each photographer be seen the way they want to be seen.
I told her about the same belief from my side. Galleries in India told me to focus on my paintings and leave my brooches until I had 20 or 30 years behind me. I did both. I have sold three paintings and hundreds of brooches, and people find one through the other. When I started in photography I charged 100 percent advance. Everyone said the industry doesn’t work that way. Clients paid anyway, some for a decade.
The title
The title is what people say to Hiya. Growing up in India, you don’t think about how Indian you are until you live in Australia. She gets asked what she is doing here, studying an arts degree, including by Uber drivers making small talk. In her Photography in China subject, which covered the Chinese diaspora in Australia, a tutor suggested the Indian diaspora might need another 20 years before it could be discussed the same way. Hiya’s question was whether that is true or whether not enough research has been done. The exhibition gives each photographer room to define it their own way and leaves the audience to form their own view.
Work, money and creativity
Hiya got a hospitality job three months after she arrived and kept it for about two years. The money was good and her degree let her fit the hours around assignments. Earlier this year she noticed her crochet and personal photography had dropped off. She quit in July to focus on the exhibition and finish her degree. I took a hospitality job three months in as well, after 300 CVs and one interview. I lasted three months, then quit to do my own work.
What Australians do differently
I am in my third year in Adelaide. Until now I held back because I was not sure how things worked here. The hardest adjustment was people saying yes without wanting something back. Six months in, a man gave me his old car and paid for the repairs. At an art viewing, a stranger asked if I had applied for a grant for my Eyes for Adelaide People series.
Website first
Most of Hiya’s photography lives on Instagram. I told her to build a website. I have blogged since 2004 and Instagram launched in 2010. A website is the one place that stays yours when platforms change. Gary, the gallery owner, tells the photographers in the show the same thing: send people to your website, because Instagram is limited by time and algorithms. Instagram still does its job. It is where people find you. The website is where they stay.
Marketing the show
Hiya has made her own reel, listed the exhibition on What’s On Melbourne, and is contacting Indian publications across Australia, including The Indian Sun and india.com.au, along with influencers and journalists. She is thinking about putting flyers up around the city. This is her first time marketing an exhibition and she is already doing more than I would have done.
Links
Hiya Thacker: Instagram
Naina: Instagram | Website
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