Raj Sen had one foot in Victoria’s creative community and the other in its arts-administration sector, a skill-set that pointed to a very bright future.
The 42-year-old executive director of Victoria’s Open Space Arts Society died Sunday from complications due to cardiac arrest. He is survived by his wife, Angela Sen, and two children, eight-year-old Kiran and five-year-old Mira.
“He was a remarkable, generous soul,” Charles Campbell, chairman of the Open Space board of directors, said in an interview.
“He would hold you up and help you navigate the world. He had a remarkable presence that way. It is a tragedy to lose him.”
Sen came into Open Space during a tumultuous time for the non-profit artist-run centre, one of the oldest in Canada, which had undergone an extensive changeover in staff. He made his mark almost immediately by re-establishing an open-door presence at the gallery.
“He had a huge impact in a short amount of time,” Campbell said.
“It was not an easy job. We are a small arts organization, and funding is always an issue. We were lucky to have him. It was like finding gold when we found Raj.”
Sen stepped into the role on an interim basis in 2018, and was given a permanent position in 2019. The centre will celebrate its 50th year of operation in 2022, thanks in part to Sen’s efforts.
Sen’s willingness to let others realize their potential fostered a collaborative working environment at Open Space, Campbell said.
“He had this calm, confident nature. He didn’t need to be full of bluster to move things forward. He wasn’t about taking the credit. He was about enabling other people to do their work.”
He was born Adhiraj Tagore Sen in Toronto in 1978. His father, Prithviraj Sen, was a marine engineer with B.C. Ferries and the family lived along the coast of British Columbia, including Alert Bay.
After graduating from Courtenay’s Georges P. Vanier Secondary School in 1996, Sen moved to Victoria and joined his brother, Surjo, in the art history program at the University of Victoria.
Astri Wright, professor of art history at the University of Victoria, taught both Sen (who majored in art history), and his brother, who died in 2008. Class sizes were between 30 and 50 students when Sen was at UVic, but he always stood out from the pack, Wright said.
Several of Sen’s forbears were “intellectual giants” in the world of Indian art and music, Wright said. His mother was the great-grandniece of Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, which gave him great pride and a sense of curatorial responsibility, Wright said.
He was also the grandson of Subho Tagore, one of India’s first modernist painters and something of a literary rebel.
“These were intellectuals who were part of the work that led to the birth of independent India, but they were also cosmopolitan,” Wright said.
After university, Sen worked for the Ministry of Children and Family Development, which is where he met Angela, an artist. They married in 2011 and moved to Hong Kong when Sen signed on to work for his uncle, Sundaram Tagore, at his internationally renowned Sundaram Tagore Gallery.
In 2016, Sen worked as the director at the gallery’s Singapore branch. With another uncle, Siddhartha Tagore, he collaborated on a documentary film about the art of the indigenous Santhal people of India and Bangladesh.
Sen was also a big part of Vancouver Island’s hip-hop community, and was a member of a number of underground Victoria acts, including Under The Influence. He went by the moniker Wandering Kid/Wandering King when he was part of the hip-hop collective DRLCTS, his most visible collaboration, and was known for his insightful rhymes.
Rory Rieger, a longtime collaborator, said in an email to the Times Colonist that several friends are assembling a collection of Sen’s music to be released on streaming platforms in the future.
A fundraising campaign was launched Tuesday for Sen’s wife and children. By press time Wednesday, it had topped $18,000.
Open Space will remain closed until March 17 as members of that community “mourn, process, and support each other,” the gallery said in a statement.
Messages of support and memories of Sen can be sent to his family by emailing careof@openspace.ca.
mdevlin@timescolonist.com
