Shalini Ganendra, cultural leader and scholar, has developed pioneering platforms for multi-disciplinary and transnational engagement. Developing meaningful and impactful cultural encounters has been a focus of her non-profit programming. "Cultural Entrepreneurship is fluid and enabling, for cultural value creation and inter-disciplinary engagement. The reach of well curated 'cultural capital' to critically engage with and inform community, has been a key driver of our advisory's programming." A number of groundbreaking transnational projects have been introduced to South East Asia through this advisory platform. The organisational objectives, research focus and driving philosophy aim to support the region's creators; '"vernacular" aesthetic practises, and to promote multi-disciplinary and cross cultural exchange. Ganendra has served on the Tate Gallery Acquisitions Committee to advise on Sri Lankan and South Asian art. Other panels include: the Fashion Film Awards – ASVOFF 6 at the Pompidou Centre,Paris; the Sovereign Art Prize; the Commonwealth International Artists Residencies; and the inaugural Caochangdi PhotoSpring Festival, in Beijing. She has been a nominator for the Smithsonian Institution's SARF program and a Chief Judge for the Commonwealth Foundation Art Awards. She has presented on Cultural and Social Entrepreneurship, including at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Public Policy, Washington DC and at universities and schools. She has been awarded signficant Visiting Fellowships, including at the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge, to further inter-disciplinary research. She has initiated non-profit programs to bring attention to South East Asia, the regions creators and creative practises, including through the Vision Culture Lectures'', supported by UNESCO Observatory, 2010 -2016, to bring international luminaries to Malaysia. The UNESCO Observatory published a selection of essays by participants in the program, as the Arts in Asia Issue 2016. In 2015, SGA launched the PavilionNOW project for green design and architecture. She founded in 2016 the annual city-wide marquee of global engagement, Gallery Weekend Kuala Lumpur.
Education
Shalini Ganendra is Sri Lankan born, with education in the United Kingdom and United States before settling in Malaysia. She attended National Cathedral School, Washington D.C. and then Phillips Exeter Academy from where she graduated in 1982 with High Honours and as a National Cum Laude Scholar. She was made a Harkness Fellowship by the Academy in 2007. Ganendra studied briefly at Stanford University. A fourth generation Cantabrigian, she read law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she was awarded the Dr. Cooper's Law Fellowship. She completed postgraduate legal study at Columbia Law School in 1989. She practised with Shearman & Sterling until 1993, after qualifying as a New York attorney and Barrister at Law.
Life and work
Shalini Ganendra was born in Sri Lanka, and educated in the United Kingdom and the United States Malaysia. She practised law with Shearman & Sterling, specialising in Corporate Finance/ Mergers & Acquisitions, before developing the mantle of cultural entrepreneurship. She married to fellow Cantabrigian and Trinity Hall graduate, Dr. Dennis Ganendra. She founded Shalini Ganendra Advisory first as a gallery in 1998 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and now an inter-disciplinary cultural advisory. Her academic, advisory and curatorial focuses are art practise, architecture and design from Asia and she has published a number of articles on these specialisations. The Advisory developed an award winning, eco-friendly space designed by architect, Ken Yeang that made history as one of the first buildings in Malaysia to secure Green Building certification. Gallery Residence has been twice nominated for the Aga Khan Architecture Award. The Wall Street Journal has described Gallery Residence as an "experimental tropical structure". Ganendra has published extensively on the subject of contemporary and modern art practices of Sri Lanka and Malaysia and on cultural markets. She has developed exhibitions to promote diversity, discovery and cross-cultural dialogue. which have regularly gained news coverage. Her dedication to credible and innovative public programming has helped foster growing awareness of Sri Lankan and Malaysian geopolitics, through a different lens. In 2016, she developed and through the Advisory lead the Gallery Weekend Kuala Lumpur, a city-wide cultural marquee, which has had subsequent editions in 2017 and 2018. In 2005, she co-curated Colours of Karma at the Nehru Centre, Mayfair, London, which featured leading Sri Lankan artists. She introduced contemporary Sri Lankan and Malaysian artists during New York's Asia Week in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2015 in a series of exhibitions titled Serendipity and "My Country". She is a past President of the Oxford & Cambridge Society, Malaysia, continuing on its Advisory Board, a founding board member of the English Speaking Union, Malaysia. and of the Advisory Board, Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
