Our Purpose
To present creative communities from Northeast India to the world.
A gallery space meets cultural journey and creative collective. We are committed to sharing the beauty and creativity from Northeast of India in ways that inspire, and reflect the culture of this underrepresented region.
Brand Commitment
We bring unique objects lovingly made out of precious natural resources and in the fullness of time.
We present artists, makers, and storytellers who you would ordinarily not encounter, as they are not part of any corporation, and they live and work in remote, hard-to-reach areas.
We are here to create true wealth, not just profit. We want people to be able to work at their own pace, at their own scale, and yet make a decent living to continue their practice, create beauty, and bring it to you.
Partnership Commitment
We work at the makers' pace. We stay true to their story and tell it in compelling ways. We place each maker, their work, and their brand in spaces that matter. We provide our partners with insight and inspiration from consumers and emerging trends.
We are committed to creating true wealth, not just profit for our artists and makers.
Meet the
Team
Founding members
Priti Rao, Co-Founder
Priti spent her early years in the Indian Himalayas working with local communities to enhance livelihoods while creating sustainable businesses. She earned her Masters in Public Policy at Sussex and a Design PhD from Northumbria, after which she went on to work at IDEO in San Francisco—one of the world’s leading design innovation consulting firms.
Currently, she works as Senior Advisor at Dalberg, an advisory firm at the cross-section of public policy and design. She is most interested in creating a community of practitioners of art, design and craft. Her permanent project includes conceptualizing and building an art residency in the Himalayas.
Samya Deb, Co-Founder
Samya was born into a publishing family in Calcutta, but his career as one of Asia’s most established creative leaders has never been by the book. Samya brings over a decade’s experience in leading large global creative studios with a passion for design and content excellence.
Currently, Samya is heading YouTube’s Asia Pacific Creative Studio after successfully establishing and leading Airbnb’s in-house Creative studios in Singapore and Shanghai for five and half years. He worked globally with the finest creative collaborators to launch an unprecedented stream of brand campaigns that were globally iconic, while being locally nuanced. He has created numerous content franchises that effectively showcased the human stories of diverse communities.
Samya is currently living in Singapore.
Collaborators
Menty Jamir
Menty is an independent Naga visual artist based out of New Delhi. She began photography intending to tell her own stories while pursuing her degree in Marketing and Finance.
Naphibahun Lyngdoh
Naphi is a Shillong-based archaeologist currently working across the Khasi-Jaintia Hills on abandoned settlements and megalithic culture. She was a recipient of the Nehru Trust 2019 award for her work on the megalithic culture of Mookyndur in Meghalaya. She also works on digital and ethnoarchaeology, focused on work that bridges the gap between people and culture via archaeology.
Alex Chen
Alex Chen is Northeast Edit's designer, specializing in UX / UI design and graphic design. Along with his passion for digital and print design, he is also dedicated to his love of making handmade ceramics. He currently lives in San Francisco.
Sayuri Kurotsu
Sayuri Kurotsu is a fashion designer and co-founder of the fashion design studio SHIROTSU JP, now based in Qatar. SHIROTSU JP is a language that shares doubts and questions about the economies and politics of our societies by initiating fashion projects, artistic installations, and performances.
MIchael Smith
Michael is a conceptual storyteller, writer, and filmmaker with an editorial flair. He’s currently an Editorial Creative Director at Google in San Francisco, and before that spent over seven years at Airbnb where he focused on amplifying the voices of real people doing extraordinary things all around the world.
He has a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction Writing & Playwriting, and spends his free time working on a narrative film script and a memoir. In a prior life, he worked as a literary editor, playwright, music journalist, creative writing teacher, and failed actor.
Advisors
Shreemoyee Moitra
Born in Calcutta, Shreemoyee was always drawn to art from her younger days. Later she nurtured this interest by studying for a Masters in Art History at MSU, Baroda and spent the last seven years working with leading contemporary galleries and museums in India helping them to build their program. Currently she looks after the contemporary art programming at Akara Art Gallery in Mumbai. She takes a special interest in discovering young emerging artists and in building a path for them.
Seher Shah
Seher is a visual artist working with drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Her work explores the poetics and fractures of how we view the landscape around us through architectural abstraction and materiality. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1998.
Sayantoni Palchoudhuri
Sayantoni is a full-time biodiverse land designer based in the Doaars region of the Northeastern Himalayas. She is also a part-time brand and communication consultant. With a background in Visual Communication Design and Psychology, she collaborates and manages projects—specializing in growth strategies and systems design.
Bruce Ikeda
Bruce is Tokyo based producer and creative director of striking content and experience, using the power of music, visuals, and storytelling.
Through strong partnerships with renown visualists and music artists, Bruce crafts immersive experiences through inspirational collaborations alongside various global branding experts and creators.
Alice Huang
Alice is a strategic communications expert and works with executives, educationists, entrepreneurs, designers, and humanitarians who want to build a more inclusive, equitable and sustainable world. She works internationally and specializes in responsible communications, where what’s true and real is as important as what’s relevant and compelling.
Considering herself to be an artisan of communications, Alice characterizes her work as tailoring and handcrafting, and sees the output of her work as bespoke and consequential garments.
General
Inquiries
If you have any questions, please write us an email. We will happy to hear from you.
Projects
Our team works on creating content for artists and makers. If you share our values and love the stories we create and have a project that you may like to work with us on, please get in touch.
Collaboration
We collaborate with select brands who share our values. The support of these companies has enabled us to continue to create great content and publish the cultural journal.
If you’re interested in partnering with us, we’d love to hear from you.
Fellowship
New Buds Writing Fellow
(September 2022 - February 2023)
This position is made possible by the generous donation of one of our supporters.
Do you find joy and solace in writing?
Have others around you read what you’ve written and complimented on how literary you are? Maybe you have noticed that others seem mesmerized when you recount events and friends have commented on how well you take in nuances and how skillful you are at telling stories. And so, you have been contemplating the idea of pursuing writing as a way of making a living but have no idea how to go about finding an opportunity to get started.
Well this could be it.
At Northeast Edit, you will work with the founders to research, capture, develop and write blended stories of humanity, creativity, beauty and nature, indigienous to the northeast region of India. This would be an opportunity to develop your storytelling and writing skills and apply them to multiple media including long-form pieces and social media posts aimed at the global audience.
What you will do
Travel to communities of interest (in person as well as remote)
Produce high quality research and writing on traditional and contemporary art and craft in the Northeast India
Create rich stories, oral histories and narratives for the Northeast edit online journal
Minimum commitment
4 days a month
Payment
This position is unpaid
Benefits
Contribution of up to USD500 to a writing course.
2 x 60-minute CV or LinkedIn profile development consultation sessions.
If you’ve read up to this point, you are likely ready to apply,
How to apply
Please email us at hello@northeastedit.com with the following information:
background information about yourself and how you heard about us
a short description of why you want to take this fellowship position
web link to one piece of writing you enjoy and briefly tell us why
two pieces of your own writing that you are most proud of
details of a writing course you want to apply to if you were to be selected as for this fellowship position
Application closing date
15 August 2022
We are committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion and we welcome applications from individuals of all ages, ethnicity, genders, and from anywhere in the world.
