Jai and Sugandha Hiremath are the Founders of ZAHF. The couple bought their first works of Indian art decades ago to decorate their home and uplift their spirits. Initially the Hiremaths focused on sculptures made in India between about the 8th and 18th centuries, especially works created closest to their home in the Deccan and south. As they travelled, they collected more broadly. Their appreciation and knowledge opened doors to private collections, museum storerooms, and scholars' offices around the world. The more the Hiremaths lived with examples of their region's visual heritage, the more they came to appreciate its aesthetic power and complex messaging. Eventually the project grew, and with their family, they established the Zirad Art and Heritage Foundation and built Vismaya.
Rahul Mehrotra is the founder principal of RMA Architects. He divides his time between working in Mumbai and Boston and teaching at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University where he is Professor of Urban Design and Planning and the John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization. Mehrotra and his firm RMA designed Vismaya for ZAHF.
Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, translator, cultural theorist, and curator. He is the author of eight collections of poetry. He curated India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2011). He has served as research consultant to the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, and as academic advisor to the CSMVS Museum, Mumbai.
Naman Ahuja is Professor of art history
at JNU and the General Editor of Marg Publications. He is also a curator and advisor to several museums in India and abroad. His exhibitions have received critical acclaim.
Darielle Mason, PhD, was the inaugural Stella Kramrisch Curator and Head of South Asian Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, now Senior Curator Emeritus. A specialist on Indian temple sculpture and architecture and longtime Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, her many exhibitions and publications range from 'miniatures' to modern, folk to fabric.
