Slideshoweveryday
by Smaer Saggar
Mumbai
Project Description
Slideshoweveryday is building the cultural infrastructure India needs. A creative house that publishes, collaborates, consults, and archives with global respect, local roots, and sharp taste.
Expected Impact
India's cultural boom across fashion, design, and music remains largely undocumented by homegrown editorial platforms. Slideshoweveryday (SSE) seeks to become India’s first digital-native cultural studio and editorial archive. Not just a publication, a moodboard or a magazine but a cultural infrastructure. The goal is to research, write, and document the stories that shape the emerging creative identity of India, in real time. The platform is rooted in editorial integrity, visual credibility, and regional specificity. Yet its ambition is not local alone. The mission is to position SSE as a globally relevant reference point, to make Indian creative ecosystems visible, intelligible, and accessible to the global community. In doing so, the platform will act as both a mirror and a bridge, reflecting local culture with depth and care, while connecting it to broader networks of artists, researchers, and audiences worldwide. SSE is not a short-term venture or an aesthetic experiment. It is a long-term response to the current vacuum. While platforms like Homegrown have provided a valuable base of coverage, their approach is commercially driven, with brand partnerships and lifestyle content taking precedence over archival depth or cultural analysis. Moreover, I feel there is lack of sensory curation that impacts and make a connection directly to the audience even if they do analyse. Diet Paratha, though impactful in championing South Asian creatives globally, primarily functions as a curatorial highlight feed without sustained editorial infrastructure. Both lack a model for community-driven storytelling that educates, archives, and constructs a cultural memory. Despite the rise of globally recognised Indian labels such as Karu Research, NorBlack NorWhite, and OutbreakLab, India lacks a platform that archives and frames these developments through consistent storytelling. In London, Samutaro and Culted serve as an editorial voice that archives subcultural history and fashion moments. Drawing inspiration from Samutaro’s approach of using social platforms as “a big cultural platform” to investigate fashion and cultural phenomena, SSE will publish in-depth features that place Indian creators in global context. Industry insiders call Samutaro “the gold standard” of fashion archives as he is regularly invited by brands and galleries to insider events, then translates those experiences into story-driven posts for his community. Proud to say I already have a couple of curations with him and he appreciates me a lot. Access has been established. Like Tokyo based Sabukaru, which “connects people with culture…subcultures with eras…and artists with the world” while keeping its content…global, SSE will link Indian subcultures to international audiences. In the United States, platforms like Aplasticplant and Outlander create cultural feedback loops through curation and community trust. In India, there is no such interface. There is no visible middle layer between consumers of art and artists. SSE exists to fill this absence. Inspired by Samutaro’s curatorial sharpness, Sabukaru’s operational clarity, and Outlander’s community rapport, the platform is built to operate as a multi-format studio. This includes editorial writing, curated digital archives, collaborative brand storytelling, visual research, and public programming. The audience includes early creatives, students, researchers, brand collaborators, and future cultural workers. Slideshoweveryday has grown without paid promotion or funding. The page has been reposted by Hidden NY and Welcome.jpeg. It has collaborated and networked with Samutaro, Truss Archive, Phorin, Tonsil, Oxygen and Undercoverosh. It is followed by key South Asian labels like RKive and OutbreakLab, and creatives who are the stakeholders in the creative surge visible here in India. All writing, research, and curation so far has been executed by a single founder while completing a law degree and no connections in the art world/industry. The platform has built cultural trust, visual credibility, and creative alignment with global pages, without institutional support. Acyde Odunlami (backbone of London culture from the Virgil Abloh crew), Elliot Wilson (documented hip hop journalism for over thee decades), Jimmy Regular (Director from the AWGE collective), Rene Luv (Kanye West's head stylist), Grace Ladoja (Mega cultural connector and consultant), producers such as Nez who work with A$AP Rocky, David X Prutting (BFA founder and key photographer documenting culture with Virgil), Judah Afriyie (Founder of Deviation along with Benji B), Ottomilo (Founder of PlayLab.Inc), global cult brands such as OThongThai are some of the key global eyes who already follow and engage with the platform showcasing authentic integrity which can be accessed and utilised by our creatives. The reach is visible, SSE curations have been reposted by Pusha T, A$AP Nast and Tremaine Emory. Curation is an undervalued but essential cultural function. In an era of algorithm-driven feeds and content saturation, the ability to select, contextualise, and present cultural material with intention is a form of authorship in itself. It shapes not just what people see, but how they understand it. The decline of meaningful curation has led to a flattening of cultural discourse, where everything is surfaced, but nothing is framed. SSE recognises that curation is not merely selection, but a tool to build taste, archive movements, and provoke thought. By foregrounding research-led narratives and region-specific storytelling, SSE aims to revive curation as a serious editorial and cultural act. It is about building informed context around the work and voices that define this generation. India is already among the top 10 countries involved in the creative economy. As the nation aspires to global cultural leadership, SSE is strategically positioned to advance this goal. By professionalising and internationalising Indian creative narratives, SSE will help channel India’s rich artistic talent into economic growth. Its work can inspire foreign brands to collaborate with Indian designers, spotlight local artisans for global markets, and encourage investment in India’s creative industries. It can and will shape how Indian cultural production is seen, documented, and remembered. By operating at the intersection of archive, curation, and publishing, the platform creates a new layer of creative infrastructure. It builds visibility for South Asian creators on their own terms. It challenges the dominance of Western platforms in framing our narratives and gives young Indian creatives a place to be written about and taken seriously. The platform is already followed and supported by its intended community. The structure is now required to scale. The platform is not speculative. It already exists. The voice, audience, and credibility have been built. With Auster’s support, this can transition from a promising solo project to a full-fledged cultural platform. The question is not whether the space is ready. The space is overdue. SSE will define a new standard for cultural storytelling from the region.
Applicant Background
Rick Rubin once said, "I don't know anything, but I trust my taste". All of my experience comes from building Slideshoweveryday (SSE) from scratch, curating, researching, writing, networking and shaping it into a credible name in the underground archive and creative community. I’ve worked independently without funding, mentorship, or a team, yet the platform has been able to gain such credibility. I have learnt from these platforms and understood in detail how they work. While I don’t have formal training in media or design, whatever I’ve built through SSE show that I understand curatorial nuance, cultural timing, and editorial quality. I’ve learned everything by doing and more importantly, by listening to the culture. Not only that Unconventional founder Yash Jhunjhunwala and creatives like Yatin Srivastava, Zaid from RFRNCS have all urged me to realise this project of mine so the taste, support and need is evident. With some mentorship from Auster, this could be something that exists for a long time and have a solid impact. I am a 100 percent committed to this and will continue pursuing it no matter what. There is a spiritual connection. So there should be no doubt about how devoted I am to learn and listen to the mentorship. I am truly passionate to make this happen.
Resources Needed
- Funding
- Mentorship
- Visibility
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