Shrujana Shridhar’s practice spans archives, drawing, illustration, community engagement and mentorship. Shrujana’s works on paper & digital illustrations accompany some of the most in-depth & critical journalistic works being carried out in India today. As a member of the Ambedkarite Buddhist community, Shrujana works to depict the full breadth of being of dalit-bahujan-adivasi people even as her works are often created in response to acts of overwhelming violence, dispossession & systemic erasure. By rejecting the representation of these communities only as victims of violence, she breaks down the pre-conceived notions of hierarchies and layers the works with more humane interpretations of their lives. Shrujana is the co-founder of the long-term archival research project The Dalit Panthers archive. The archive is a seminal work within Dalit-Bahujan artistic scholarship of the country to demonstrate the historical connections between the Black Panther movement in the United States and the Dalit Panthers in Maharashtra.

Shrujana Niranjani Shridhar is an illustrator and designer practising in Mumbai. She completed her Diploma in Visual Communication and Art from Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. In 2016, she co-founded the Dalit Panther Archive to document the Dalit Panther movement of the 1970s. Her main research interest is the exploration and definition of a Dalit aesthetic that has existed in the Indian subcontinent for centuries in myriad, heterogeneous forms. Her work examines socio-political relations, especially at the intersection of gender, caste, and class.

Shrujana Shridhar
‘Graduation’ Originally commissioned by The Caravan
‘Water & Caste’ Originally commissioned for the podcast, ‘The Subver by Dark ‘n’ Light