Navjot Altaf began her career in 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has created an oeuvre which constitutes an ever-growing flow of films, sculptures, spatial / site-oriented installations, and photographs that negotiate various disciplinary boundaries traversing art and political activism. The essence of her imagery comes out of her theoretical and methodological innovation, combined with deeply engaged readings of historical and contemporary art, film and cultural theory. Navjot has worked extensively on the problematic of the feminine through her understanding of Marxist/Feminist theory in the fields of social history of art, cultural and psychoanalytic theory which she has analyzed with historical interests in her own art practice.
The artist works with musicians, documentary filmmakers, activists, general public and craftspeople. Since 1997 she has been collaborating with Adivasi /indigenous artists and community members on ongoing Nalpar /handpump sites and Pilla Gudi /temples for children - projects in Kondagaon, Bastar – Chattisgarh in Central India. Her methodology ascertains the interactive aspects of collaboration, whereby the work emerges out of an extended dialogical interaction and simultaneously alters the conventional relationship between the viewer and the work of art.
She has shown extensively in India and several other countries at museums and galleries, including Fukuoka, Sydney, London, Liverpool / Bolton, Berlin, Dusseldorf ,Duisburg,Lisbon, Lille, New York, and other places.
Navjot Altaf lives and works in Mumbai and Bastar

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