Ashish Avikunthak (b.1972, Jabalpur, India) is an Indian avant-garde filmmaker, film theorist, archaeologist and cultural anthropologist. His films have exhibited internationally, and are the subject of over a dozen retrospectives and eighteen solo shows. Avikunthak was listed in Future Greats 2014 by Art Review.
Avikunthak has a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Stanford University and taught at Yale. He is the author of Bureaucratic Archaeology: State, Science and Past in Postcolonial India, published by Cambridge University Press in 2021, and his scholarly works have been published in the Journal of Social Archaeology, Journal of Material Culture, Contributions to Indian Sociology and The Indian Economic and Social History Review among other publications. Some of his notable screenings include Tate Modern, London (2006), Centre George Pompidou, Paris (2006, 2008, 2011), Taipei Biennial (2012), Shanghai Biennial (2014), along with Locarno Film Festival (2007, 2011), Rotterdam Film Festival (2007, 2011, 2021, 2023, 2024), and Berlin Film Festival (2008, 2017), among many others. Recently, Avikunthak had a retrospective of his works at MUBI (2021-22).
The artist is currently an Assistant Professor of Film and Media at the Harrington School of Communication & Media, University of Rhode Island.