Chaitanya Modak is an artist, curator and exhibition maker based in Pune, India.
His engagement with sound, word and image began in the late 1990s through illustration, writing, newspaper layout and comics, including Bhopu, a daily comic strip published in Loksatta.
He subsequently studied Film & Video Communication at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, expanding his practice into moving image, sound and visual storytelling.
In 2008 he founded Inhouse Design, an independent branding and communication strategy studio. In 2012 he established Won-Tolla Co-mix, an independent publishing imprint through which he has developed artist books, zines, comics and concrete poetry.
Alongside design and publishing, he has developed an independent body of artistic, curatorial and socially engaged work. His practice moves between drawing, installation, moving image, artist books, exhibition-making and participatory storytelling.
I work at the confluence of art, language, visual culture and everyday life. My practice is research-led, moving between writing, drawing, publishing, moving image, exhibitions and participation.
Through these, I explore how language, memory, belief and place shape what we notice—and what we overlook.
I believe in art as a social practice.
I am interested in the stories people make around everyday life—food, sleep, rituals, rhythms, relationships, absurdities, animals, places and things.
These recurring subjects become material for poems, drawings, films, exhibitions and other forms of visual and literary experimentation.
My work often begins with looking closely: at a word, a wall, a neighbourhood, a small shrine, a gesture, a way of speaking, a book.
Sometimes that looking becomes a drawing or poem. Sometimes a book, an exhibition, a film, a mural or a participatory project. Form follows the inquiry
My social and collaborative practice brings together communities, artists and researchers to explore how people represent, share and make meaning of their everyday lives.
SNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action) · Salaam Bombay Foundation · Magic Bus · Wellcome Trust · Wenner-Gren Foundation · Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan · Rotary Club of Bombay · Priya’s Shakti · Pomegranate Workshop · Mozilla Foundation
I have taught and conducted workshops in visual communication, filmmaking, photography, design, storytelling and creative practice at institutions including..
2026 –
DY Patil, School Of Design, Kolhapur,
2022–2024
Pune Design School, Pimpri Chinchwad University, Pune
2018–2022
Whistling Woods Design School, Mumbai
2017–2019
The Pomegranate Workshop, Mumbai
2017–2018
Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication, Pune
2014–2015
École Intuit Lab, Mumbai
2009, 2014
National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad
2010–2012
Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped, Mumbai
2002–2003
Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay, Mumbai