Payal Khandelwal

The Floating Magazine’s posterzine ’Resistance’ features extracts from a series of conversations published on TFM’s digital publication in 2021. It features excerpts on the theme of 'Resistance' from architect, artist & activist - Sofia Karim, artist - Dáreece J. Walker, art critic & co-founder of The White Pube - Zarina Muhammad, and curator & founder of the London-based gallery Mimosa House - Daria Khan. Exclusively for the zine, artist and journalist Molly Crabapple has given insightful advice for young artists who want to be actively involved in the critical issues that surround them.

Sangita Jindal acquired her first artwork at the age of 19. It was an Anjolie Ela Menon, and at the princely sum of Rs 15,000, it was also a steal. Jindal has come a long way since that first purchase and today, she has a collection featuring some of the most prominent artists of our times. These, she houses at the pristinely white Jindal Mansion in south Mumbai, and the gargantuan state-of-the-art JSW (Jindal Steel Works) Centre at the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC).
Many pieces still wait on st...

INTERVIEW: Sofia Karim is an architect (practicing for over two decades), an artist, a writer, an activist, and also a poet. I have added ‘poet’ because poetry – as well as profound passion – pervades throughout my entire conversation with her and in her work. In fact, all of these identities often merge together in most of her projects.

“Vulnerability. Perhaps that is the magic of 40 Days, and part of the reason that Jessica Walsh is at the top of her game: She embraced it.” – Zachary Petit
Among the plethora of interviews and profiles on Jessica Walsh, founder and creative director of the New York-based creative agency &Walsh, the one in Print magazine in 2016 is one of our favorites. This thoughtful piece by writer Zachary Petit delves into an interesting stage in her life and career. Titled ‘The Evolution of Jessica Walsh...

An easy way to describe artist and writer Molly Crabapple’s work is to say it’s radical, political, courageous, and extremely powerful. There is a constant quest for truth and for adventure – however excruciating the circumstances may be – that can be traced through almost all of Molly’s life. To get a glimpse of this, we highly recommend reading her outs...

A second-hand, slightly battered book with a mustard-coloured cover was my first introduction to a bunch of poets referred to as the Romantics. Blame it on the first year of university when English literature was raining down on me like fish from the sky, that I was fascinated by the Romantics’ vivacious and crazy lives much more than their work. A wobbly black and white movie screening where most of them, mainly Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and John Keats, were mingling in ...

A look inside the training ground for our nation’s four-legged soldiers.

We’re sitting atop a rocky outcrop, overlooking a forest clearing. It is a cloudy evening in Gwalior as we watch Flame, a German Shepherd, walk cautiously and attentively alongside his handler, Sitaram Meena.

Flame approaches the edge of the thick jungle, where two men are concealed underneath the natural cover. Five minutes later, after diligent sniffing and intense observation, Flame breaks his silence, having located ...

With piles of books scattered everywhere, the large office of art historian Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, managing trustee and honorary director of Mumbai’s Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, looks eloquently cluttered. Located at the entrance of the Museum, the office has large vinyl boards of its expansion plans resting on one of its walls. At the opposite end, there is a large table that displays some memorabilia, thick copies of annual reports and a few programme catalogues, among other things.
Over the l...

INTERVIEW: Yasha Young is the founder, concept creator, and executive creative director of URBAN NATION, Berlin’s first museum dedicated to street art. Yasha has also created two other key art projects called Project M/ and ONE WALL and an artist residency program for urban contemporary artists called Fresh A.I.R. Yasha has been a part of the international art scene since 2001. Before URBAN NATION, she launched and managed Strychnin Gallery, with locations in NYC, London and Berlin, from 2001 to 2013.

The works of 31 year old Sameer Kulavoor, visual artist and founder of design studio Bombay Duck Designs, often fiercely cut through the bones of urban India to capture its soul. The quintessential self-initiated publication projects like The Ghoda Cycle Project, Oh Flip, Zeroxwalah Zine and Blued Book are keenly observed minutiae about the makeshift and inventive side of urban India, peppered with personal notes and bursting with raw energy.

And his works are now available in Paper Planes’ e...

Karachi-based artist Samya Arif’s Women of My Land work is an album of moving music about growing up as a girl in Pakistan, accompanied by beautiful illustrations that instantly draw you into Arif’s world.
While I love the entire project, the Fast Girls artwork is the one that had a powerful connection with me. It feels like a close friend with whom I share a secret language.
I live in India, and Samya in Pakistan - two countries ruthlessly separated by the partition in 1947, and yet so simil...

In the last few years, being distinctly original (based on one’s culture and roots) is gradually being corroded by a wide variety of influences. Graphic design is often being blamed for getting homogenized as we move forward. Based in Iran, quarterly Neshan Magazine is a huge step in seeking that balance between sticking to one’s roots and a contemporary vision of design.
Needless to say, Persian/Iranian designs are extremely unique, but have hitherto been submerged in various political and c...

All the brilliant, off-kilter, independent magazines of the world, take a bow. The D&AD Professional Awards 2016 gave away its precious pencils to ten indie magazines from different parts the world – Avaunt, Rubbish FAMzine, Sirene, Beauty Papers, Buffalo Zine, DEAR, Design 360˚, Flaneur Magazine, The Ride Journal and Weapons of Reason.
We got a fabulous opportunity to talk to one of the jury members for Magazine & Newspaper Design c...

As he enters the conference room of Mumbai’s Press Club, the most noticeable thing about Aabid Surti is his salt-and-pepper beard that covers a major part of his small face. The beard somehow marvelously chronicles the number of years he has spent in creating a massive and impressive body of work spanning genres and variety. 78-year old Surti is a national award winning painter, writer, illustrator, a one man NGO (Drop Dead) and one of the early cartoonists of India, who gave us the first eve...