Pawan Deol and Laura June Albert to take over Indian Summer Festival helm
Anoushka Ratnarajah and Devyani Saltzman to co-curate July 2023 event
Pawan Deol and Laura June Albert. Photo by The Portrait Sessions Photography
INDIAN SUMMER FESTIVAL has announced its new shared leadership team made up of longstanding employees of the organization: Pawan Deol will be executive director of cultural programming and Laura June Albert will step in as executive managing director.
Since 2016, Albert has worked with the festival society as a departmental leader spanning teams throughout the organization, including the Taiké project, the Pause Pavilion, and the Artist As Healer research residency. Working for the organization since 2019, Deol has also written and produced several Leo award-winning films, including Unkept and Deeper I Go.
The 13-year-old multidisciplinary event also announced today that it would launch a new collaborative curatorial model, with Anoushka Ratnarajah (former artistic director at Out On Screen) as lead curator and Toronto-based Devyani Saltzman (former director of public programming at the Art Gallery of Ontario, director of literary arts at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and a founding curator at Luminato) as guest curator for the 2023 Indian Summer Festival, which takes place in July.
Sirish Rao and Laura Byspalko, who cofounded the organization, stepped down from the organization at the end of 2022. In January, Rao joined the Vancouver Art Gallery leadership team as director of public engagement and learning.
“Nothing makes us happier than to know the home we have loved so dearly will be cared for by those that have helped to build it,” Rao said in the announcement today.
Launched in 2011, Indian Summer Arts Society is a leading presenter of South Asian arts in Canada. Its flagship festival has hosted high-profile international artists over the years, including Booker Prize-winning novelist Arundhati Roy, celebrated painter Bhajju Shyam, and acclaimed flutist Hariprasad Chaurasia. At the same time, it has nurtured local talent, including visual artists Sandeep Johal and Jag Nagra and musical innovator Ruby Singh.
"Founder transitions are incredibly complicated and can be full of anxiety,” said Angie Osachoff, chair of the board of directors, in a shared statement with Am Johal, outgoing board chair. “We feel so excited to be passing the organization's reins to those who have built up its reputation, high production value and generosity of spirit by being an indelible part of its fabric over the past few years. We feel honoured to be building the leadership from within. There are exciting days for the Indian Summer Festival ahead that value our history while experimenting with radical new directions that connect to new audiences."
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