ujjwal kanishka utkarsh is a Phd-in-Practice candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. He has been trying to develop a form that emerges out of the observational cinema tradition and he continues to do that through his PhD project. For Ujjwal, this has resonances with John Cage’s ideas of beauty and he has explored that through various forms and themes. He has looked at ideas of nothingness, of being in transit and also at labour practices, specifically at peculiar farming practices.

In his current ongoing work, he is trying to see if and how through this form he can look at and reflect upon political activity. In the current political situation, where the space for voice of dissent is rapidly diminishing, truth is either viewed very simplistically and reality as objective or the post modern perspective renders all truth relative and all reality socially constructed. In this context, this is also an exploration to see if such ideas of observational form could create a space that avoids pitfalls of both these seemingly untenable theoretical extremes.

ujjwal has worked as an independent filmmaker while frequently dabbling into other forms like photography, sound and theater. He has also been a faculty of various aspects of filmmaking in several institutes across India.