For Art’s Sake: Eirini Meze on Art, Exchange and FAACII’s Ambitions for India
When art advisor and gallerist Eirini Meze established FAACII (For Art and Culture in India Inc.), she had a broad vision: to create new opportunities for artistic exchange between India and the international art world, while supporting contemporary art through education, exhibitions and cultural initiatives.
The New York-based nonprofit’s inaugural artist residency, Carried Ground, brought together British artist Mary Pye and Indian artist Parnika Mittal for five weeks across Bombay and Jaipur. The programme combined studio time and mentorship with opportunities to encounter the cities’ architecture, artistic practices and cultural life.
The resulting exhibition at Abode Bombay offered a glimpse into what can emerge when artists work in an unfamiliar environment. For FAACII, the residency is the beginning of a larger undertaking that includes educational initiatives, international partnerships and, eventually, Meze’s ambition to establish a contemporary art museum in Mumbai.
We spoke to Meze about the thinking behind FAACII, the inaugural residency and her vision for the future of contemporary art in India.
What led you to establish FAACII? What did you feel was missing in India’s contemporary art landscape?
When I began researching the Indian art scene and its potential, what I found was a gap. The market is focused on Indian Modernism and the Progressive Artists’ Group: Souza, Raza, M.F. Husain, Gaitonde.
That is fundamentally an education problem, and it’s the one FAACII was set up to address.
FAACII describes itself as a bridge between India and the international art world. What does that look like in practice?
The bridge runs in both directions. In India, we promote contemporary art and educate audiences about it. Internationally, we show Indian contemporary artists and help the global art world understand what is happening here. By that I mean contemporary practice, not traditional forms such as pichwais or miniatures, at least for now.
The residency brings that idea to life. We decided early on to include two artists, one international and one Indian. After selecting Mary, we reopened applications specifically for Indian artists. The idea was for them to live alongside each other, work in the same space and exchange ideas, and it happened very naturally.
What role does art education play in FAACII’s mission?
What needs to change is exposure and education, because you can’t value what you’ve never been taught to look at. That means lectures, and exhibitions of real quality with leading museum curators. That’s the direction FAACII is working in.
How did you select Mary Pye and Parnika Mittal for the inaugural residency?
We selected the artists through an open call. I shared it with artists I knew, including both Mary and Parnika, and posted it publicly. We received applications from all over the world, from Ghana to across India.
Every applicant needed two referees, a CV showing their art education and exhibition history, and a clear statement of what they intended to make during the residency, and why they were applying. That last point mattered most. Mary and Parnika had the strongest CVs and the strongest answers, and that is why they were selected.
The residency incorporated craft traditions, studio visits and cultural immersion. How did you think about India as part of the programme?
India has an enormous amount to offer.
That’s why the residency isn’t about teaching craft. The workshops were a source of inspiration. What we want to educate people about is contemporary art from a curatorial perspective. That means the thinking behind a work, the design decisions, the artist’s statement, and the years of training that sit behind it.
What did you hope the artists would take away from spending five weeks in India?
The difference is that they lived here. Abode Bombay and Abode Jaipur gave each artist a home and a studio, so they experienced India the way you experience a city you’re based in, not one you’re visiting. Coming to see an exhibition is one thing. Producing work somewhere is very different: sourcing stretcher bars, canvas, paints and primers, and dealing with all the practical logistics of making.
The point was to have them engage with local life, meet people, and absorb the feeling of each city. That has a real emotional impact on an artist.
In Bombay, the artists took part in an architectural walk through Colaba with Walkitecture, an early-morning city tour that included the flower and vegetable markets and Sassoon Dock, and workshops on jewellery and stones. In Jaipur, they joined a heritage walk through the Walled City and a carpet-weaving workshop with Tissage Rugs.
You can stay in your studio, in your own shell, and never see the world. But if you do see it, your work becomes something else. An artist can’t isolate themselves from society or from the world, and this residency was about exposing them to it fully.
How do you think about the balance between international artists and Indian artists in a residency like this?
For me, the balance comes from who we select. Both artists have very strong CVs and were trained at some of the world’s leading art schools.
Mary and Parnika are two professional artists, one from the West and one from India, and both understand how the art world works. Neither needs the other to interpret anything. They meet as equals, and that is what makes them the right bridge.
You’ve spoken about a long-term ambition to create a contemporary art museum in Mumbai. What would you want it to offer?
This is my long-term ambition and, really, the end goal. I want to bring India an institution on the level of MoMA in New York or Tate Modern in London.
It’s a very long-term goal and I’m very ambitious about it. But it has to be built brick by brick, with time, patience and dedication.
There are private initiatives emerging. Kiran Nadar has done an extraordinary amount for the country with her new museum in Delhi, and the AdP Museum of Contemporary Art is opening in Ahmedabad. Mumbai deserves a museum people are genuinely excited to visit, with iconic exhibitions, leading curators and a real cultural life around it. Above all, it would be a place for learning.
What does FAACII need from the wider art community now?
What we need most is interest: people coming to open studios and exhibitions, and wanting to understand what the artists are actually doing. Everything we run is free to attend, so the only thing anyone needs to bring is curiosity. That applies to collectors, institutions and younger audiences alike.
The interest in the residency across Mumbai and Jaipur has been extraordinary, and almost all of it has been word of mouth.
They wanted to learn. Who are the mentors? Why is a British artist spending five weeks working out of a studio in India? And why has an artist with her own studio in Delhi chosen to spend those five weeks here with us? Those questions are the whole point. That curiosity matters enormously, and it’s how an ecosystem begins.
Anyone who wants to follow what comes next can find us at faacii.org and @forartandcultureinindia.
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