Rachel Kalpana JAMES

Rachel Kalpana JAMES (she/her) is a visual artist, educator and arts administrator.
Of South Asian origin, James resides in Ottawa, on unceded and unsurrendered
territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation. James is a graduate of Carleton
University and the Ontario College of Art. In 1993, as one of the founding artist
members of the South Asian Visual Arts Collective (SAVAC), Toronto she worked to
start and sustain visual arts programming as part of Desh Pardesh (Co-Coordinator,
1994), and in various capacities thereafter. At a time of organizational crisis in 2000,
James was sought out and hired as Managing Director and incorporated SAVAC as a
nonprofit organization (2001) to continue the work of offering South Asian visual
artists opportunities to develop and participate in the culture sector as exhibiting
artists, curators, jurors, programming committee and board members, volunteers
etc. After a move to Ottawa in 2007, James coordinated Urban Diversity Forum and
was the inaugural Curator of Education-Ottawa Art Gallery. She continues to exhibit
her multimedia and performance art works in Canada and internationally. Recently
James was awarded the SAW Prize for New Works (2020) and her video projection
Bright Oriental Star (2011) was acquired for the Ottawa Art Gallery’s collection.