Ali Akbar Mehta

Background

About Ali Akbar Mehta

I am a Transmedia Contemporary Artist exploring digital technology in its manifestations of audiovisual content creation, archival and documentation possibilities, and most importantly the hybridization of reality and sensory world building. My practice is formulated across diverse media involving drawing and painting, digital painting, photography, bookmaking, video, data mining, documentation and archival work. My background in 3D Animation, VFX and postproduction has facilitated an ability to support my Art practice forming a parallel body of work. I collaborate with robotic engineers, computer programmers, musicians, writers, theater and filmmakers and I aim to found processes that would leave deep impacts on contemporary culture, technology and knowledge. My practice is concerned with collective memetic history, narratives of memory and identity formations in relations to the ‘Other', making visible silenced histories of violence and trauma by encoding new archetypes, hybrid mythologies, and culture jamming. My work, by shifting from practice of image-making, to that of knowledge production, confronts through inquiry the political-religious-socio-economic quadrangle as a constant existence of our lives and investigates the themes of the Hero and his/her position in contemporary society, the nature of violence, and identity; and attempt to reconcile and/or disrupt histories with necessary counter-perspectives. I hold a Master’s in Visual Contemporary Culture in Art at Aalto University’s Art, Design and Architecture Department, Helsinki,(2018); and a Bachelor's degree in Fine Art from Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai (2005). I live and work in Helsinki and Mumbai.