Biography

Biography
Awards
Exhibitions
Publications
Workshops

Biography

Srivi Kalyan is a multifaceted artist, designer and scholar. She works at the fluid and exciting intersection of arts, media, education, design, environment and consciousness. Her artistic work, in image, text and performance delve into the landscapes of interiority, to reconnect with the natural world and with ourselves. Her art is an act of wandering within the sacred place of the self. Rooted in the mystical and aesthetic traditions of the Indian subcontinent, she delights in creating art and creative writing that inform and intertwine with each other. Quirky, playful and paradoxical she actively forges works that explore the interplay of void and earthiness, creating complex patterns of the self- reflecting, mirroring and rejoicing. Delicate, feathery numinous lines of gold belie convictions on paper to be savoured in slow time.

She has a doctoral degree from the University of Transdisciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU), Bangalore. She has a Masters in Arts in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge and a Masters and Bachelors in History of Fine Arts & Graphic Design from Stella Maris College, Chennai. She was the Founder-Director of Fooniferse Arts Private Ltd. and worked on diverse projects for 14 years. Her personal work can be viewed at www.sriviliveshere.com. She is an adjunct professor at the Consciousness Studies Program, National Institute of Advanced Studies and a trustee at the Trust for Environmental Education. She is also a recognized PhD Guide with Manipal Academy of Higher Education. At Srishti Manipal Institute of Art Design and Technology (SMI), she is the Dean for M.Des (Masters of Design) and B.Des. Information Arts and Information Design Practices, M.Des Earth Education and Communication as well as their respective post graduate diploma programs in the cluster of Law, Environment and Planning at Srishti Manipal. She has set up and also leads the Integrated Doctoral Program in Reimagining Transitions. She is the principal investigator at Lila- Artist Research Studio at SMI. She is the head of the centre and one of the principal investigators of the Centre for Reimagining Transitions at SMI. She encourages students to discover the heart of their own creativity. Her doctoral research focused on Indian philosophical traditions, aesthetics and personal art practice to uncover intrinsic ecological consciousness. Blending expertise in research and practice across multiple disciplines, Srivi brings trans-disciplinary approaches and insights to her work.

She has authored and illustrated several children’s books as well as stories for adults and is an award winning writer and illustrator. Her stories and illustrations have been published by Katha, Puffin, Tulika, Ediciones Castillo, Oxford Bookstore Website, Reader’s Digest, Manoj Prakshan and others. She also writes on art and art education in magazines and websites like Parent Circle, Azim Premji Foundation’s Learning Curve, thealternative.in and others.

She has worked for some of the leading educational/edutainment organizations like Sesame Street, NCERT, idiscoveri, Katha, Tulika, Birla Edutech, Ilango’s Art space, designing cutting edge books and media for children and young people on one end, and workshops, curriculum, teacher training modules, interdisciplinary strengthening, design and delivery of curriculums on the other. Her work through the creation of educational media reaches millions of children across India through reprints of textbooks, and creative products.

Srivi’s commitment to meaningful education began as a pre-schooler, when she came back home and diligently started to teach her dolls. With their intuitive belief in creative and thoughtful education, Srivi's parents have been her life-long guides and mentors. She was inspired by the loving respect they gave to little minds and souls, creating safe, challenging and creative spaces for them to grow in. Art and Education have both been an inseparable passion for her and in art-education, she found a way to integrate the two. Srivi believes in working closely with young people, making their creative nature visible to them through the processes of art making, listening to each other, and closely observing their connection to nature. To her education is about nurturing holistic people. She believes that education should not focus on how successful students are in the corporate world or elsewhere, but how genuine they are to living life with purpose and inner strength. She strongly believes that being an educator also involves being a good role model as children learn more from our gestures than our carefully planned programs. Being an artist, designer and entrepreneur who is constantly learning herself, she finds that children and young people connect better when they know that the person who teaches them has a dream and is living it every day. Her work and workshops draw in the rich connections between language, art, performance, thought, and play. By creating open and powerful sanctuaries in her educational workshops, she explores leadership, creative and critical thinking, community development and team building.

In a society that is constantly growing into greater violence, health issues, environmental destruction, her work in education is to build a strong voice for sustainable and compassionate living. And through the arts, she finds a way to engage people in the most important conversations they must have with themselves.

Areas of Interest: Artistic Practice, Arts Education; Visual Design; Illustration; Earth Education; Conservation, Communication; Art History; Creative Writing; Indian art, aesthetics and philosophy, Consciousness Studies, Ecological Consciousness, Eco-ethics, Eco –philosophy/Ecosophy and Eco-aesthetics, Transdisciplinarity.