Bina Sarkar Ellias

Bina Sarkar Ellias (born 1949) is a poet and artist. She is the editor, designer, and publisher of International Gallerie, a magazine founded in 1997 which focuses on the socio-political and cultural issues in art around the world.

Cultural Practitioner

In 1984, Bina Sarkar Ellias and Rafeeq Ellias co-founded the advertising agency "Nucleus," where she served as Creative Director for 12 years. In 1997, she founded International Gallerie, a global arts and ideas magazine created to address socio-political and cultural issues through excellence in the arts from around the world. She has completed 48 volumes of the magazine.

She edits, designs and publishes every issue of the magazine herself.

In recognition of her contributions, she received the Woman Achiever's award by FICCI/ FLO in 2013 and was named Woman Achiever of the Year by the Times Group & ITC in 2008. She was also awarded a fellowship from the Asia Leadership Fellow Program and Japan Foundation for Research in 2007 for her project "Unity in Diversity: Envisioning Community Building in Asia and Beyond," developed in Tokyo. She has also received the Prince Claus Award.

Additionally, Bina Sarkar Ellias curated the show “Migration” at the Pune Biennale.

Sarkar Ellias has been invited to speak at various venues, chaired the New Moves Festival discussion with other female Asian artists in Glasgow, and has participated in forums in London, San Francisco, New York, Tokyo, Tehran, Dhaka, Lahore, Karachi, Delhi, Santiniketan, Kolkata and Mumbai. She has also been a panelist at the 85th Congress of PEN International in Manila, Philippines in 2019.

Poet, editor, designer, publisher, art curator

Sarkar Ellias graduated with Honours in English at Scottish Church College, Calcutta University. Afterwards, she began working as a freelance writer to Desmond Doig's popular journal, Junior Statesman. Eventually she was hired as assistant editor to T.M. Ramachandran of Film World, an Indian magazine focused on world cinema, and then went on to be a sub-editor at Eve's Weekly, following which she contributed articles for The Times of India, The Indian Express, The Hindu and the Hindustan Times.

She founded International Gallerie in 1997, a global arts and ideas journal that encourages understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity through excellence in the arts.

She has designed book covers and catalogues for many creative projects, including "Fifty Years of Contemporary Indian Art" (1997), for the Mohile Parikh Centre for Visual Arts in Mumbai, which she also edited
/sup>. She has designed the catalogue of artist Jehangir Sabavala for the 2002 shows in Mumbai, Delhi and New York, as well as artist Rekha Rodwittiya's catalogue in 2003 and 2007. She designed the 40th anniversary catalogue for Gallery Chemould in 2004, which was named "Crossing Generations, Diverge." She worked on a book about the artist Tyeb Mehta, 'Svaraj', written by Ramchandra Gandhi. She designed, edited, and published an art book, 'Chinthala Jagdish: Unmasked' in 2004. In 2005, she worked on a book of poems for Indian poet Sudeep Sen and a book of photographs for Ayesha Taleyarkhan. She edited and designed 'Calcutta, Repossessing the City,' a 2006 book written by photographer Leena Kejriwal. She also edited and designed Surendran Nair's book, 'Itinerant Mythologies,' in 2008. Also in 2008, she designed and edited Waswo X. Waswo's book, 'India Poems: The Photographs' and his recent catalogue, 'A Studio in Rajasthan.' She recently designed the book 'Scent of Rain,', a tribute to the late poet Jayanta Mahapatra.

Sarkar Ellias has curated several art shows: ‘Rain’ at Sakshi Art Gallery, Bombay, commissioning 32 Indian contemporary artists to make works on Rain; ‘Kashmir’ at Tao Art Gallery, Bombay. Artists from Jammu & Kashmir were invited to present their works with mainstream Indian artists in an awareness program of Kashmir, its history and conflict; and ‘The Curious World of Chinthala Jagdish, a show of the Hyderabad artist and his whimsical art works. She curated the online show of international art for Pen & Brush, New York, and launched her curatorial project 'Tagore Lost and Found' with 30 Indian artists at Siddhartha Tagore's Art Bull Gallery in New Delhi, March 1, 2013. She curated 'Migration' for the Pune Biennale, 2017. It included photography, films and poetry mounted in six shipping containers with junk art created by Pune artists in the foreground. Her recent 2025 curatorial project was the acclaimed art & poetry show 'Free, Fearless, Fantastical' for the historic 131 years' old Pen & Brush Gallery in New York (January-April, 2025).

A poet, her chapbook of poems, 'The Room' has been published by AarkArts, UK, which has also appeared in various magazines, anthologies and online poetry sites. Her book of poems 'Fuse' has been published by Poetry Primero, an imprint of Poetrywall, 2017. Poems from it have been translated into Arabic, Urdu, French, Greek and Chinese. A Chinese edition of FUSE was launched at the Formosa Poetry Festival in Tamsui, Taiwan, in 2017. 'Fuse' has also been taught at the Towson University in Maryland, USA. A Spanish-English book of her collected poems, 'Cercana Lejania'/Closer Farness' was published in Madrid, co-authored by Nieves Alvares and translated by Isabel Miguel. Her second ekphrastic book of selected poems responding to art and photographic images 'When Seeing Is Believing' has been launched in Mumbai and New York. 'Song of a Rebel', a book of socio-political poems, was also published by Red River and was launched in 2020. 'Ukiyo-e Days. Haiku Moments' published by Red River is a tribute to traditional Japanese Woodblock prints, responding with her own haiku. Recently, Red River Publishers and Indian Novels Collective published her Chapbook 'If Stones Could Speak'. Her poems have been published in numerous anthologies.

Personal life

Bina Sarkar was married in Tokyo to photographer and award-winning documentary filmmaker Rafeeq Ellias. They have two children.

Their son, Raoul Ellias, is an IT professional in the United States. Their daughter, Yuki Ellias, is an actor-director, who played Hermia in Tim Supple's "Midsummer Night's Dream".

When not traveling, Bina Sarkar lives and works in Bombay.

References

External links

Rethinking Rain



Bina Sarkar Ellias: Understanding Afghanistan





An Afghan Affair



Inspired Poems

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellias, Bina Sarkar
Indian magazine editors
Indian women designers
20th-century Indian designers
Living people
Scottish Church College alumni
University of Calcutta alumni
Indian women magazine editors
20th-century Indian women writers
1949 births