In this episode I, Kamayani Sharma, speak to artist, researcher & educator Ita Mehrotra, author of the graphic book ‘Shaheen Bagh: A Graphic Recollection’ (Yoda Press, 2021). On the second anniversary of the incredible protests led by India's Muslim women against the CAA & NRC, in this episode we discuss the role of language in the public sphere, how illustration captures the contemporary differently from lens-based practices and how the graphic serial form allows movement among different registers & types of material. We also talk about mixed media methods of comics-making and how graphic nonfiction can and does function as a text for children & young adults.   Learn about our guest:   Ita Mehrotra is a visual artist, researcher and educator. Her work has been published and exhibited by Zubaan Books, Goethe Institute, AdAstra Comix, Yoda press, Fumetto Festival, The Wire and KHOJ, among others. Her recent graphic book ‘Shaheen Bagh, A Graphic Recollection’ voices moments and memories from the vast anti CAA uprising that spread across India over the winter of 2019 (Yoda Press, 2021).   Ita is currently Director of Artreach India, a not for profit that works at the intersections of art, inclusive education and community development. She has been a recipient of the Arts for Good Fellowship (Singapore Foundation), the Gender Bender Grant (Goethe Institute and Sandbox Collective), Fumetto Festival Apprenticeship Grant (Prohelvetia Swiss Arts Council), Connectors of the Future Fellowship (Swedish Institute) and Negotiating Routes: Art & Ecology Grant (KHOJ Artists Association). Ita was Visiting Faculty, Visual Arts, at Ashoka University in Spring 2021 and has an MPhil from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU.   Click here to access the Image+ Guide & view the material being discussed in the podcast: https://sites.google.com/view/artalaap-podcast-resources/episode-14   Credits:   Producer: Abhishek S.   Intern: Priya Thakur   Images courtesy Yoda Press.   Design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee   Marketing: Dipalie Mehta   Additional support: Raghav Sagar, Kanishka Sharma, Amy Goldstone-Sharma, Shalmoli Halder, Arunima Nair, Jayant Parashar.   Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CC BY-NC 4.0]   Contents:   0.14 - 1.54 – Introduction  1.57 - 6.52 – How Ita’s academic engagement influenced her art and the significance of the university campus in political education.  6.53 - 11.43 – The use of various analog and digital media to draw and the process of making the book.  11.43 - 20.31 – Deep listening, responsive drawings, and the play between image and text.  20.32 - 28.28 – Arriving at graphic nonfiction for the documentation of the Shaheen Bagh protests, not as evidence but as an extension of the events.  28.29 - 43.19 – Structuring the book: planning out chapters and storyboarding. Understanding Shaheen Bagh beyond just resistance to CAA-NRC.  43.20 - 52.42 – Space and time on the page vs. screen. 52.43 - 58.45 –  The matter of subject-position, collaborative strategies of working and using religious and caste privilege to express solidarity.  58.46 - 1.06.40 – Ita’s work as an arts-based educator and how books shape the politics of the children and young adults in the current moment.  1.06.41 - 1.12.03 – Influences and models as an artist and a comment on the future of the form in India and, more broadly, in South Asia.