TRI Art & Culture is a nonprofit, multidisciplinary center that reimagines encounters with visual, performing, culinary, and literary arts, as well as social and research practices. Drawing from the rich cultural legacy of Calcutta, TRI presents exhibitions and events designed to engage the senses, spark social discourse, and inspire creative exploration. Our galleries are free and open to all — because everyone deserves the chance to experience the enriching and transformative power of art.
TRI Art & Culture is a space of exploration for everyone.
Before TRI became a multidisciplinary art and culture center, our heritage property served as a private residence for nearly 70 years. In 2018, Hazra’s flatiron building became vacant, leaving the Thapar family with an unoccupied property/building adjacent to their Ballygunge estate.
With its unique triangular shape and stately position on Hazra Road, siblings Varun and Nitasha Thapar recognized an opportunity to creatively repurpose the residence. Given their family’s shared affinity for the arts, it was only fitting to revitalize the space as a hub for creativity. In late 2019, 53/2/2 Hazra Road began its journey as a home for art and culture with an outpost exhibition and series of events celebrating a local gallery’s 10-year anniversary.
This initial activation of the property planted the seed for Calcutta’s very own Kunsthalle—a space dedicated to fostering engagement with the arts’ enriching qualities and transformative potential through free exhibitions and events, all open to the public. Having spent a formative part of their childhood in Calcutta, Varun and Nitasha wanted to give back to the city that had given them exposure to multiple creative disciplines and access to a supportive community that encouraged them to explore their sensory curiosities.
To bring this vision to life, the Thapars collaborated with Open to Sky Architects to transform the historic property into a state-of-the-art exhibition space. While preserving the building’s facade, they reimagined its interiors to create a functional and contemporary space. Today, window shutters have been repurposed into sliding doors, a kitchen has become a reception area, and what was once a private library now serves as a public gallery, complete with gypsum walls and terrazzo floors.
As TRI Art & Culture, 53/2/2 Hazra Road draws on Calcutta’s rich cultural heritage, enhanced by modern design, to create a public hall for the arts where we invite visitors to explore, tri, and discover various creative disciplines.
TRI is eponymously named after our heritage building’s unique triangular shape — an architectural form that not only inspires the triangulation of ideas but also invites visitors to explore, tri, and discover these concepts through novel experiences. That’s why TRI’s curation and cultural programs bring together various artists, artisans, institutions, writers, performers, and thought leaders in unexpected ways to forge new creative connections.
At TRI Art & Culture, our curatorial program is designed to highlight art’s intrinsic value to society and explore its role in shaping individuals and communities. We are dedicated to nurturing an interest in experimentation while honoring an affection for tradition. With democratic arts engagement at our core, TRI bridges the gap between community and culture through five key curatorial principles.
Aesthetic Exposure Offering diverse display and discourse which span various periods and creative disciplines to cultivate and broaden artistic appreciation
Aesthetic Inquiry Integrating arts-based research into public programmes and community outreach to address social, cultural, and curatorial questions through community-driven creative processes
Prioritisation of Perception Offering multi-sensory opportunities to explore, tri, and discover art, which enhance the visitor experience while making content more accessible to a wider audience
Regional Grounding Drawing inspiration from Calcutta’s multicultural history and the Bengal Renaissance’s commitment to humanism to present socially relevant exhibitions and events
Global Pollination Cross-continental collaborations aimed to reinforce Kolkata’s essential position historically and contemporarily in the global arts ecology
Varun Thapar is the Chairman of the KCT Group, and is the fourth generation of his family to lead the 100-year-old business conglomerate. Hailing from an artistically inclined family, Varun’s passion for the arts inspired the foundation of TRI Art & Culture as a way to give back to the city that shaped his formative years. An advocate for academic and cultural development, he supports various scholarships and research programs. Varun holds a double major in European History and Economics from Brown University and is an accomplished classical pianist.
Nitasha Thapar is the Founder-Director of the KCT Group Trust and leads the company’s CSR division. Her hands-on community-driven initiatives include the Kashvi Learning Centres, a women’s education and empowerment project that has over 2,500 participants. She is also the founder of Infonauts Design, a boutique design studio specializing in graphic and information design. As the co-founder of TRI Art & Culture, Nitasha combines her passion for art, design, and social entrepreneurship to shape the institution’s vision. Her work focuses on curating programs that foster artistic exchange and create meaningful cultural connections, reinforcing TRI’s commitment to a vibrant, interdisciplinary approach to the arts.
Madeleine St. John made her home in Kolkata in early 2020 when she moved to the city to volunteer and study with a local nonprofit pioneering Dance Movement Therapy for survivors of gender-based violence. Since then, Madeleine has initiated and completed several nonprofit projects and programmes in Kolkata at the intersection of arts, human development, and community care. With an education and professional foundations spanning the behavioral sciences, interculturalism, development, the arts, and global health, Madeleine’s vocational expressions take an interest in conducting humanitarian work with cultural and interpersonal sensitivity — employing the senses and aesthetics themselves as vital tools for creatively developing lives, communities, and societies we are excited to inhabit. As the Director of TRI Art & Culture, Madeleine applies her professional acumen to develop and execute an institutional vision that draws on the unique cultural heritage of Calcutta alongside its contemporary possibilities to cultivate connection, community, and social sensitivity through creativity.
Writer, cultural content strategist, and ceramist in training, Pavini is the Assistant Curator & Program Manager at TRI Art & Culture. Since its inception, Pavini has worked closely with TRI’s founders to shape its vision as a reimagined cultural hub for Calcutta. In her current role, she develops exhibition-based community programs and collaborates with curatorial partners to advance TRI’s mission. With experience in design, cultural research and arts-based community programming, Pavini’s interdisciplinary practice focuses on contextualizing histories of art, culture, and social phenomena through research, visual communication and playful exhibition design. She believes in the transformative intersection of art and design as a format to deepen audience engagement and cultivate meaningful and impactful community interaction. Affectionately known as Muskan, she is a Curatorial Fellow at the Curatorial Intensive South Asia by Khoj Studios and a graduate of the Young India Fellowship at Ashoka University. In her free time, she hoards exhibition dossiers, listens to cultural podcasts, and tries to spend more time outdoors perfecting her handstand.
After studying and travelling between cities for five years, Sarasi Ganguly has finally come back to her home turf of Kolkata where she works as the Community Engagement Associate at TRI Art & Culture. Sarasi is the first point of contact for guests walking into the space. Her work consists of guided engagements for visitors, social media community and community outreach as part of the exhibitions and events. A culture and heritage enthusiast, Sarasi holds a Master’s in South Asian Studies from Pondicherry University, where her research was focussed on changing environments of cultural and creative industries in the post-pandemic world. She has also trained in museum management, specialising in the educational role of museums. She works and is very passionate about the documentation of lesser-known regional histories and material memory. In her leisure time, Sarasi is usually found with a book or in a new arts and culture space she has just discovered.
