Located in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) and founded by Suresh Jayaram in 2003, 1Shanthiroad is a not-for-profit gallery and art space that hosts lectures, performances, poetry readings, art installations, conferences, craft fairs, film screenings, and monthly talks by artists and scholars. An extension of the ancestral home of artist, curator and cookbook author Jayaram, the studio–gallery also hosts international residency programs in partnership with KHOJ International Artists’ Association.

Serving as a space that exists outside traditional institutions and academies, 1Shanthiroad allows artists to create radical, interactive and collaborative practices free from the rules and conventions of these institutions. It serves as a residence as well as an open house in the heart of the city’s art district, adjacent to two of Bengaluru’s major galleries — GALLERYSKE and Sumukha. Built around two open courtyards, the space consists of four residency studios and private quarters for artists to work in and live in, the living quarters of Jayaram’s family and separate public spaces for the galleries. Resident artists also have access to a library of contemporary art, an archive and a common kitchen and dining area — the latter inspired by the Bengaluru-based theatre space Ranga Shankara.

Some of the most important projects held at the space include a multi-year collaboration with the Theertha International Artists Collective, Colombo, called the Sethusamudram Project, which aims of engage with the complex and charged history of India–Sri Lanka relations; a show titled REWA that addresses the lives of Tibetans-in exile in India; and a public art and history project (with the support of India Foundation for the Arts), Bangalore Connect, that released a book on GH Krumbiegel, a German horticulturist who shaped much of Bengaluru’s gardens. The gallery has also hosted a series of talks by artist Pushpamala N on art history and has conducted art workshops for underprivileged children. One of its most recent initiatives is a reciprocal residency, in association with Goethe Institute, which enables artist exchanges with Germany.

In 2015, the gallery published a book titled Making Space for Art, comprising eight essays by former artists-in-residence discussing their projects, their interaction with Bengaluru and the contribution of the residency to their individual practices.