Arpit Gaind

I make and study media to ask who gets to see, who gets seen, and on whose terms: in documentary film, in archives and maps, and in the digital tools that now hold them.

My work joins practice and theory. I make participatory films, build digital humanities projects such as the Ways of Seeing archive and its Counter-Mapping strand, write on Indigenous media and the institutions that fund and keep it, and teach media literacy. It grows from a decade of collaboration with Indigenous communities in eastern India, and its questions travel to any community, institution, or archive deciding how lives are recorded, described, and kept. Along the way I have led research and editorial work, from curating research at Ambedkar University Delhi to editing Comitatus and organizing graduate conferences at UCLA. I am a member of UCLA’s Center for India and South Asia, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the Association for Asian Studies, and the American Association of Geographers.

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AboutWho I am, and everything at a glance

Women seated in a circle preparing food under a tree

ResearchIndigenous media, archives, and visual sovereignty

A workshop with young people seated on the floor around chart paper

TeachingWriting seminars and media production

Writing & TalksPublications, editorial work, and presentations

Arpit Gaind in silhouette behind a video camera

Digital HumanitiesArchives and digital projects

A woman planting rice seedlings in a flooded field

Film & MediaFilms, and soon photographs, a blog, and a podcast

A hand-painted blue Adivasi home in Jharkhand

A project of its own Ways of Seeing Adivasi (Indigenous) media, archives, and maps: an archive of films, collectives, documents, and readings with First Principles for community control, and Counter-Mapping. Visit the site ↗

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