Team
Nikhil Chopra
Nikhil Chopra’s (b.1974) artistic practice ranges between live art, theatre, painting, photography, sculpture and installations.
His performances, in large part improvised, dwell on issues such as identity, the role of autobiography, the pose and self-portraiture, reflects on the process of transformation and the part played by the duration of performance. Taking autobiographical elements as his starting point, Chopra combines everyday life and collective history; daily acts such as eating, resting, washing and dressing, but also drawing and making clothes, acquire the value of ritual, be- coming an essential part of the show. Chopra has been performing actively in the international art and theater scene since 2008.
Madhavi Gore
Madhavi Gore (b. 1976) is a visual artist who works across the mediums of painting and drawing, live art and performance. She is drawn to the slow handwork of fiber craft and printmaking techniques, which she often incorporates to build costumes, masks, and props, which enter the world of her performances. She freely shifts between different registers as a maker of things and experiences, recording expressions and journeys in time, moving beyond borders of disciplines to generate modes of questioning through encounters with objects, material, site, and the body, Madhavi Gore is a partner member of HH Art Spaces and has been involved with the movement since its inception, when HH Art Spaces appeared on the scene in Goa. During this time, she became a mother for the second time. The HH collective spirit and energies encouraged her to stay in practice and research, leading her to find the fine balance between art and life. During the Pandemic, she trained and practiced as a natural birthing Doula and assisted in the labour room for seven births and the afterbirth care. Madhavi’s current role at HH Art Spaces is curatorial and to maintain and nurture artistic relations within the residency and community.
Romain Loustau
Romain Loustau (b.1982) is a French artist, who works and lives between Paris and Goa.
Romain studied drama and spent few years acting on stage and on camera. During which time he also collaborated with the French Parisian based collective Mu, specially as assistant scenography to Vincent Voillat for several editions of the festival “Filmer La Musique”. He has collaborated with some rock bands such as “Farewell Poetry”. Now Romain Loustau is dedicated to the development of HH Art Spaces with artists Madhavi Gore and Nikhil Chopra.
Shivani Gupta
( b. 1984 ) is trained classically in the Indian dance form Mohiniattam, she tends to privilege the visual over the performative, beginning from the interior (the body) and moving to the exterior through the camera.
Her practice and primary artistic interest in photography is underscored by performances staged for the camera, as well as by the documentation of live art. These performances have revealed the possibilities of the camera as an agent of personal and cultural myth creation, where photography can be used to excavate the magic of places and their people to explore and present a reality that is not within the framework of the banal.
Thread Whispers Chapter I, Of Rock and Apricot and Mountaintop was shown at the Fotofest Biennial 2018, Girl in a House recently previewed at Serendipity Arts Festival 2019 as part of Look Stranger. She lives and works in Goa, India.
Shaira Sequeira Shetty
Shaira Sequeira Shetty (b. 1987) studied Media & Cultural Studies at Tata Insitute of Social Sciences, Bombay. She’s worked in diverse fields including producing and managing large scale exhibitions and learning festivals.
She’s been a producer and partner at HH Art Spaces for the last few years, and has been involved with the organisation since 2016. She was also a a part of the core organisation of The Story Of Foundation, a non profit that was aimed in promoting awareness and understanding of academic and cultural sciences among the general public, based in Goa, India (The Story of Light, 2015 & The Story of Space, 2017).
Her work at HH currently, tends towards its overall organisational, managerial and production related goals and ambitions. As well as preserving and safeguarding its future.
Mario D’souza
Mario D’Souza is a curator and writer based between New Delhi, Goa, and Kochi, India. He is also Co-Artistic Director and Resident Curator at HH Art Spaces Goa.
He is also on the Curatorial Team for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale and is Director of programs at the Kochi Biennale Foundation. He was formerly the curator at Khoj International Artist’s Association, New Delhi, where he curated several exhibitions, including This Must be True (co-curated with Mila Samdub and Radha Mahendru, 2019) and Evidence Room (2017). In addition, he conceptualized and led Asia Assemble (2017) and co-curated the symposium Art – Science – Fiction (2018). His research interests include: political imaginaries; the nation building project; cultures and aesthetics of dissent; public acts of assembling; legal and extra-legal systems; and evidence and truth.
Recent curatorial projects include Antibodies with HH Art Spaces, The Tetley Museum, Tate Hyundai Research Center and Live Art Development Agency supported by British Council; How to Live Together? With HH Art Spaces, Britto Arts Trust, Theertha and Galerie 3000 supported by Pro Helvetia; and God and the Long Road at Museum of Christian Art, Goa supported by India Foundation for the Arts.
Madhurjya Dey
Madhurjya (b. 1996, Assam, India) is a painter and production manager based in Goa, India, with a graduate and postgraduate degree in Painting from the prestigious MSU of Baroda.
His practice critically re-examines and challenges dominant histories of the North-Eastern region of India. By harnessing the generative potential of oral histories, personal testimonies, witness accounts, and photographic records, Madhurjya's work probes themes of othering, marginalization, forced nationalization, and freedom politics, offering a nuanced and multifaceted perspective on the region's complex experiences.
He has worked with HH Art Spaces and Nikhil Chopra as a production and research assistant since 2022.
Shruthi Pawels
Shruthi Pawels (b. 1993, Kochi) is an architect and designer with a Master’s in Architecture from Parsons School of Design, New York, and a Bachelor’s in Architecture from Manipal Institute of Technology, India. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges architecture, art, and community engagement to foster meaningful societal change.
She has actively contributed to large-scale art exhibitions, including the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2022–23 as a Production Associate, and volunteered for Lokame Tharavadu 2021 and Serendipity Arts Festival 2023. She has worked with non-profits such as Habitat for Humanity in New York, Roots of Development in Haiti, Build Abroad in Peru, and TAOS in Kochi, focusing on low-cost housing, solar lighting, community renovations, and art therapy. Most recently, she assisted Goa-based artist Afrah Shafiq on multimedia architectural installations.
Currently, Shruthi works with HH Art Spaces, overseeing artist liaison, organizational, and production responsibilities. She also works at People Tree Studio with Orijit Sen as a production designer on the Mapusa Mogi mural project in Goa.
Alex Xela Alphonso
Alex Xela Alphonso (b. 2001) is interested in creating and engaging with and for people- whether it is an audience, artists or the general public. She is a design graduate from NID, with a focus on Textile and Apparel. In her time at HH Art Spaces and Studio Citron, she is interested in leaning and expanding ways of collaboration and artistic experimentation, creating spaces for dialogue and shared discovery.
In her private experiments of creating drawings and performances, she explores the body through themes of transformation, revelation and self-perception.
Divyesh Undaviya
Divyesh Undaviya (b. 1994) is a visual artist based in Goa whose practice spans installation, painting, drawing, assemblages, and sculpture. Divyesh’s work reflects his interest in how the external environment—shaped by both natural and built spaces—interacts with the internal, embodied experience of the individual.
Engaging with the rapid and rabid flux of modern life physically and emotionally/psychologically, his works bring to the surface the volatile relationship between landscape, architecture, and the human body, focusing on physical sensations, gestural forms and materiality as primary mode of encounter. Through his diverse media, he examines how these elements influence one another, offering a nuanced reflection on the ways in which space, movement, and perception shape our lived reality.
He holds a post-graduate and graduate degree in Visual Arts from the Department of Painting, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and since 2023, he is working as a production assistant at HH Art Spaces, Goa.