Adam’s World

“Our Young Creative Entrepreneurs programme is most successful in India,” says Adam Pushkin, the new head of Arts and Creative Industries for the British Council. “There are so many people here who demonstrate the enormous scope for creativity you see in India, with a flair for business – and who recognise the need to learn.” Pushkin is here to carve out a niche for cultural exchange on the arts, culture, fashion and more. Nowhere are the possibilities of the marriage of Indian and British cultural practice more evident than in the musical collaborations of the last couple of years. Pushkin points out the work of Jason Singh with Rajasthani folk artists, David Murphy and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s arrangement of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan’s ragas in their ‘Sangam’ production, as evidence of the fascinating results of cultural experiment. “Through play,” he says, “we find an expression of mutuality.”