This platform will connect you with mentors to navigate your creative journey

Representation pic

For young professionals in the overarching arts and creative sphere, direction is often intuitive, paved by chance and chased opportunities. If you're lucky, you get a mentor or a job that aligns with the direction you want to move in, mentors as seniors, and a space that's conducive to career and artistic growth. Though not rare, it's definitely high talk about ideal conditions, and more so when it comes to any creative field. But, help is on the way. An Artizen is a platform that aims to make it easy for newcomers to navigate the arts space from dance, music and comedy, to writing, film, and visual art, as well as the business side of the field like production, management, sound engineering and more.

Shruti Hasan

Co-founder Meher Sachdeva highlights the insight that pegged the idea, sharing, "We noticed that people didn't have access to the right information on how to get started with their journeys. I've experienced that personally as a dancer. An Artizen aims to bridge that gap." Apart from written and video interviews with artistes, on November 8, the platform launched Project Huddle, a consulting space for the creative ecosystem where people starting out or those looking to pave concrete next steps in their careers can log in for a one-on-one online session with industry experts. Here's how it works - A roster of about 25 advisors put out a schedule for online sessions that can be booked by anyone. This includes 30, 60 and 90-minute virtual sit-ins for varying prices from R1,000 that can go up to R10,000 depending on the advisor. Post booking, mentees can fill in details about themselves, their journey and the help they're looking to get so that mentors can better prepare advice and strategies. "The creative space is very individualistic; there is no cookie-cutter formula. These tailor-made sessions take into consideration that people have different journeys and different ideas of what success looks like," Sachdeva shares.

Anto Philip and Ritika Chandra

Mentors on the list will be added on a rotation basis to cover seven categories - film, television, dance, music, visual arts, comedy and writing, and a league of specialists from technical, management and business experts. This includes actor-musician Shruti Haasan, visual artist Santanu Hazarika, artiste manager Abhishek Oswal whose clients include Kenny Sebastian, co-founder of Under25 Anto Philip, musician and lead vocalist of The Yellow Diary Rajan Batra, editor at Penguin Random House Rea Mukherjee, ballerina and teacher Ritika Chandra, among others.

Rea Mukherjee and Santanu Hazarika

The platform is also looking at putting out information on how one can make the most of time with advisors. Sachdeva explains that the idea is to take various perspectives and experiences to mould a unique strategy and plan one's own journey. "The thought is not to reinvent the wheel but to take information from mentors and experts and pass that down to people starting out," she concludes.

Log on to: anartizen.com/huddles
Cost: Rs 1,000 onwards