Lleah Amy Smith has lived and worked across India and Australia since 2011. She returned to Sydney in May 2017 after living and working in Delhi consecutively for two and a half years. Smith’s research practice is largely centralised within the Global South; she is an artist, educator and arts writer and therefore sits at nexus of creator and facilitator. She is primarily interested in how audiences engage with art and how people learn about art. Having worked in arts education intensively for over five years, Smith is interested in understanding how cultural and social frameworks inform the two focus areas above. She received an Honours Degree in Fine Arts and Masters of Art Administration from the University of New South Wales Art and Design; throughout her University career she was listed on the UNSW Dean’s List for Outstanding Academic Achievement in 2011 and 2012 and was the John Gage Prize recipient in 2013. She has exhibited widely nationally and internationally, facilitated learning programs in Australia and abroad and has been published independently and as part of the UNSW online press, Biennale of Sydney Student Newspaper, Khoj International Artists’ Association’s Semiannual Publication, The Wall Art Magazine and Kaldor Public Art Projects’ Education Kit.

Lleah was the recipient of 4A’s Emerging Writer’s Program 2018, the third iteration of a professional development program that supports fieldwork in the Asia Pacific and critical writing outcomes from early career Australian writers. Under this program, Lleah undertook a period of research in Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai and Kochi in December 2018 that informed this article. 4A gratefully acknowledges additional support for the Program from the Commonwealth government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, via its Strategic International Investment Fund, and Program supporter Art Monthly Australasia.