INTERNATIONAL INDIAN ART CONFERENCE 2011 ART OUTSIDE THE WHITE CUBE
Diversity of contemporary Indian art practices outside the commercial spectrum
of Indian Art and Culture THE BHAVAN Institute 4a Castletown Road
CENTRE West Kensington
London W14 9HE T 020 7381 3086/ 4608 E curator@bhavan.net W www.bhavan.net
INTERNATIONAL INDIAN ART CONFERENCE 2011 ART OUTSIDE THE WHITE CUBE
Holding Time, 2010 Artists discussing their work at the M P Birla Millennium Art Gallery, The Bhavan Centre, UK
Diversity of contemporary Indian art practices outside the commercial spectrum
of Indian Art and Culture THE BHAVAN Institute 4a Castletown Road
CENTRE West Kensington
London W14 9HE T 020 7381 3086/ 4608 E curator@bhavan.net W www.bhavan.net
Curator’s Note ART OUTSIDE THE WHITE CUBE
– diversity of contemporary Indian Art practices outside the commercial spectrum is the second annual art conference at the Bhavan Centre UK. Following from the ‘Business of Art’ conference in 2010, this conference provides a platform to independent enterprises such as artists’ residencies, museums, public art galleries and education-focused organisations, which support the creation of artwork on the one hand, and provide information and exposure to audiences on the other - art practices and events that dialogue with the social fabric of the local and global. The invited speakers represent a very small section of a growing number of such ventures, and I hope that their presentations will serve as an introduction to the larger art scene, which may unfold during the discussions with the audience. Platforms such as these serve to provide an infrastructure for engagement and sharing, where the boundaries between the speakers and delegates dissolve during the open discussions. I am thankful to the speakers and chairperson for their generosity in supporting this programme and contributing to an ongoing dialogue on Indian Art practices in India and Internationally. Darshana Vora Gallery Administrator and Archivist The Bhavan Centre, UK November 2011
The Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum The Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum was established in 1872 as the erstwhile Victoria & Albert Museum, Bombay. It is Mumbai’s oldest museum. It showcases the city’s history and culture. It has a collection of the fine and decorative arts which highlights early modern art practice as well as the craftsmanship of various communities of the Bombay Presidency. The collection also includes miniature models, dioramas, maps, lithographs, photographs and rare books that document the life of the people of Mumbai and the history of the city in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Museum won UNESCO’s highest international award in the field of cultural conservation in 2005 and re-opened in 2008 with an extensive exhibitions programme which includes a strong focus on contemporary art. It has a curated residency where contemporary artists from the Sir J. J. School of Art are invited to respond to the Museum’s collection, history and archives. For over a hundred years in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Museum had an umbilical link with the J.J. School. The position of curator of the Museum and the principal of the School of Art were held by the same person and several of the Museum’s objects were (images to left: top-bottom) Installation details of the exhibition ‘this too shall pass’ by Sudarshan Shetty, in the Museum’s Industrial Arts Gallery. Jitish Kallat’s works on view in the Museum’s Special Exhibitions Gallery during his exhibition ‘Fieldnotes: tomorrow was here yesterday’ Art theorist and educator Amir Parsa, Museum of Modern Art, NY conducts a workshop on the ‘Meaning and Relevance of Cultural Education’ Children listen intently as the Museum’s educator delivers a workshop on contemporary photography held in conjunction with the exhibition ‘something that I’ll never really see: contemporary photography from the V&A’
Nikhil Chopra performs as a Queen in the museum gardens as part of his exhibition ‘Yograj Chitrakar Memory Drawing X’
produced by students of the School. Acclaimed artists Sudarshan Shetty and Jitish Kallat have participated in this residency programme, reviving the Museum’s historic relationship with the School and revisiting the intentions of the Museum’s founding principles. Questioning the premises of making art and the values ascribed to art works, Sudarshan Shetty’s objects in this too shall pass (25-Sep to 31-Oct 2010) take their forms from historic processes and organic beginnings that resonate with the Museum’s collection. But in skilfully playing with the material and mechanics of their presentation Shetty subverts their original intentions. His artistic practice has evolved a semiotics of startling connections that addresses primal issues and comments on painful legacies. As an artist who has been deeply engaged with the life of the city, his work in the exhibition, was a profound exploration of its vulnerabilities, its dark interstices and its lost histories. It questioned the premise of “the museum,” its existence and the aura of authority it exudes. In Fieldnotes: tomorrow was here yesterday (23-Apr to 9-Oct, 2011) Jitish Kallat engaged with and made interventions in the Museum space in an extended conversation with the Museum collection, its architecture and its library. He visited the Museum over a period of two years, thinking deeply about its layered history which is intertwined with both the early modern art movement and the socio-economic development of the city. As an artist whose work draws its raw material from the city, sifting its dreams and articulating its challenges, Kallat’s work had a profound resonance within the space of the Museum. He appropriated the Museum’s architecture and intervened within the display cases creating new readings of the collection and the Museum’s history, invigorating his works with a tension that included both hindsight and foresight. In another series of solo exhibitions called Engaging Traditions, the curatorial focus is on art
practices which speak directly to the craft traditions that underlie the founding of the Museum. The artists evoke the present by challenging orthodoxies and questioning assumptions. Sheba Chhachhi, the first artist to participate in this programme, mounted Evoking the Pause (18-Oct to 4-Dec, 2011), an exhibition of photo and video based objects and installations. Her works recuperate ancient iconography, myth and visual traditions to calibrate an inquiry into the contemporary. She investigates issues of decay and violence, personal and collective memory, the marginal and the forgotten and the interplay between the mythic and the social. She configures these images using old maps, texts and copies of original art works from the Museum’s archive to essay a pithy and profound commentary connecting cultural memory with significant urban issues: the abuse and importance of water in our lives; the relationship between the body and the city and the marginalisation of labour that harks back to exploitation during colonial times. L.N. Tallur will be the next artist to participate in this exhibition series (18-Dec, 2011 to 4-Feb, 2012). Inspired by classical Indian traditions, Tallur creates kinetic sculptures that wittily comment on society and politics. The Museum has a formal partnership with its former namesake, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. As a part of this agreement, it has hosted exhibitions on contemporary photography and the Olympic posters from the V&A’s collections. Something That I’ll Never Really See – Contemporary Photography from the V&A (17-Nov, 2010 to 9-Jan, 2011) included some of the most innovative works created during a pivotal period in photographic history. The exhibition showed a broad range of styles by internationally renowned names and emerging talents that were presented in India for the first time. A Century of Olympic Posters (4-Feb to 13-Mar, 2011) showcased Olympic posters as visual documents of sport and art, politics and place, commerce and culture. The exhibition revealed the significance of these posters, even in today’s world of multimedia
communication, in establishing the look, feel and brand of the Olympic Games. The Museum has hosted Yograj Chitrakar Memory Drawing X an exhibition and performance by artist Nikhil Chopra (27-Mar to 2-May, 2010). Memory Drawing X, Part I combined the different artistic mediums of theatre, drawing, film and photography to explore the many layers of the city, mediate troubled histories, excavate personal memories and challenge the boundaries between the refined and the prosaic. In Memory Drawing X, Part II, the artist took on the persona of a Queen. Wearing an elaborate Victorian dress, the artist made a drawing of the Museum which was originally built in honour of Queen Victoria and her consort Prince Albert. Irony, humour and a gentle pathos informed the artist’s journey through the Museum and its gardens as he contemplated the objects and intentions of a bygone time. German artist Eberhard Havekost’s works will be presented at the Museum (19-Feb to 1-Apr, 2012) in collaboration with the Dresden Museum, Germany. Havekost deals with the optical perception of the realistic world and its pictorial abstraction. He often examines the visual rhetoric of media images which condition our daily image consumption. A selection of his paintings from the Dresden’s permanent collection will be on show at the Museum.
Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum 91 A, Rani Baug, Veer Mata Jijbai Bhonsle Udyan, Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Marg, Byculla East, Mumbai 400027, India. T: +91-22-23731234/+91-22-65560394 E: managingtrustee@bdlmuseum.org W: www.bdlmuseum.org
Hetain Patel - Mustache Triptych
Hetain Patel - Bald Triptych
New Art Exchange
New Art Exchange’s award-winning building in the heart of Hyson Green provides the backdrop and inspiration for exciting and challenging contemporary art, representing the expression of diverse voices, often at the fringe of modern Britain. From cutting-edge commissions and world class artists to exhibitions by emerging creatives, students and community groups; its programme has enjoyed success both critically and with its audiences. Initially New Art Exchange was formed in September 2003 as a new organisation to steer and manage the development of Nottingham’s first dedicated cultural facility for Black contemporary arts. A partnership formed between two organisations: APNA Arts with its focus on South Asian arts, and EMACA Visual Arts - supporting the development of artists of African / African Caribbean origin. From April 2006, the Board of New Art Exchange were successfully awarded capital funding to create a new dedicated centre for contemporary arts on the site of the former Art Exchange. Since opening its doors in September 2008, in its first year NAE created and delivered a programme of 31 exhibitions, took part in 37 partnership projects, and worked with over 400 artists. Major commissions for the organisation include: Zineb Sedira’s Floating Coffins, Indian folk and tribal art compendium An(other) Story, and Donald Locke’s Pork Knocker Dreams amongst others. Engaging the local with the international, NAE’s innovative and imaginative programme continues to showcase the best of contemporary art, covering multiple issues including capitalism, globalisation, migration, religion, ethnicity, folk and tribal identities, racism, colonialism, science, regeneration and more. It has exhibited work from some of the world’s leading international
Harminder Singh Judge - the Inconsistency of Everything
KHOJ International Artists’ Association
artists including Christian Marclay, Stuart Franklin, Raghu Rai, Ian Berry, Ed Pien, Rashid Rana as well as supporting emerging artists such as Hetain Patel and Nadeem Chaudry. New Art Exchange has worked on many partnership projects including the Liverpool Biennial, Asian Triennial, Nottingham and Bradford Melas and more. In Autumn 2010, NAE joined forces with Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery and Hayward Touring to host and launch the seventh British Art Show (BAS7) recognised as the most influential exhibition of Contemporary British Art. Its innovative programming and growing international reputation ensure it is one of the leading spaces to exhibit contemporary art.
New Art Exchange 39 - 41 Gregory Boulevard, Nottingham NG7 6BE T: 0115 924 8630 , M: 07735067607 W: www.nae.org.uk
KHOJ International Artists' Association is a registered, autonomous artist led initiative which was set up in 1997. From its modest beginnings 14 years ago as an annual workshop, it has grown into a unique independent space for the incubation of ideas. Since its inception, its direction has been towards creating an alternative forum for experimentation and exchange within contemporary art practice. It has sought to facilitate the empowerment of the so called third world artists and their cross-cultural bonding beyond racial prejudices and for an exchange of information along alternative lines. A vanguard of the vital optimism that is shaping contemporary India, Khoj is creating a legacy for the future. Khoj has supported the experimentation of many leading Indian artists well before they went on to receive international acclaim. Over 400 Indian and 600 international artists from countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Uganda, Kenya, Turkey, Pakistan, Japan, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Thailand, Korea, UK, Germany, France, Mexico and America have been through Khoj. Its studios in Delhi have catalysed a community of artists into networks in India and across south Asia. The embryonic beginnings of Kolkata, Mumbai, Guwahati and Bengaluru soared into development and support of 4 nodal partnerships in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal resulting in SANA (South Asia Network for the Arts). This south Asia network has articulated interactions between diverse group of artists, geographies and cultural contexts. From 1997 to 2009, Khoj organized 11 annual two week workshops. The workshop brought together over 25 International and Indian artists to create a forum for the exchange of ideas, varied methods and approaches in art making, through which new and experimental directions in art can
be explored. The workshops that have taken place at Modinagar, Mysore, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai, Patna and Srinagar. With over 150 projects in form of residencies, workshops and curatorial programmes, artists have produced more than 500 artworks at Khoj. Through its many programmesresidencies, seminars, symposiums and talks, Khoj willfully juxtaposes individuals from diverse contexts and make the exchange the basis of producing art and knowledge about art. Celebrating Khoj’s consistent engagement with various genres of live art, in 2008, Khoj curated the first ever International Performance Art festival in Delhi- KHOJ LIVE 08. The Festival was a dynamic six day programme of events which brought together exciting, diverse Indian and International performance artists in an attempt to showcase the different currents, positions and possibilities of contemporary performance art. Nikhil Chopra, Maya Rao, Neha Choksi, Zuleikha Chaudhari, Varsha Nair, Steven Cohen, Fred Koeing, Da Motus, Boris Nieslony, Mehr Javed and Rehaan Engineer- to name a few among others who participated. Khoj opened this year 2011 with the landmark Hans Ulrich Obrist talks. With public interviews of 26 artists, social philosophers and political analysts, The KHOJ Marathon by Hans Ulrich Obrist, captivated more than 600 people throughout the day. A unique public event, the Khoj Interview Marathon provided a critical understanding of art practice, its context and value. Some of the key interviewees were Vandhana Shiva, Sunder Sarrukai, Homai Vyarawala, Dilip Simeon, Geeta Kapur, Ranjit Hoskote, Subodh Gupta, Raqs Media Collective, Amar Kanwar, Jittish Kallat, Shilpa Gupta and Bharti Kher – amongst others. A space where vibrant imaginations are nurtured, Khoj has created unconventional synapses between art and disciplines such as science, technology, architecture and fashion. It is¬ actively assisting, developing
(images top-bottom) For(e)play, Mithu Sen, The Idea of Fashion, 2011 Incubator, Arjun Saluja, The Idea of Fashion, 2011 Navin Thomas’ My Love is an Icy Cold Fever (part of ‘In Context:Public Art Ecology, 2011’) lights up the street in front of Khoj Studios All Images courtesy: Khoj International Artists’ Association, 2011
and promoting new, investigative, interdisciplinary and experimental art practices to break boundaries; in all media (ephemeral art practices such as Art & its intersection with Ecology, Science, Architecture, Fashion Sound Art, Performance, Experimental Theatre etc. Installation, Public Art and Multi-Media Work) to encourage critical debate, diversity and innovation within art thereby create a discursive space virtually and on the ground. By Design (International Residency, 2009), Bookmaking Residency (International Residency, 2009), Sonic Art (International Residency, 2008), Sculpture and Video Art (Associate Residency, 2007), The Yamuna Project (Public-Eco Art, 2007), Light Workshop (2006), Hybrid Sonicscapes (Sound Art, 2006) and Photography Residency (2005)- to name a few of the diverse programmes across a variety of media and disciplines. The Idea of Fashion- a residency held in February, 2011 viewed fashion as an area of exploration, where concepts find an expression and creative practitioners can engage with new approaches of looking at fashion. The artists-in-residence Anay Mann, Arjun Saluja, Kallol Dutta, Manisha Parekh and Mithu Sen, created works exploring the meaning of fashion, and how we can start seeing it as an artifact and instrument in society beyond fashion of the ‘fashion shows’ and ‘fashion weeks’. The In Context:public.art.ecology residency was in its second phase this year. Initiated in 2005, two separate themes of Public and eco art were brought together under this residency in 2010. The artists in 2011- Ackroyd & Harvey (UK), Ecohaven + Brandon Ballengee (USA), Navin Thomas (India) and Pratik Sagar (India)- investigated and explored sites of science through their diverse projects ranging from creating living ecosystems for insects, an organic grass photosynthesis photograph, an interactive bird habitat, an insect attracting eco- habitat; all within the broader framework of ecology and science rooted in today’s cultural and philosophical context. Negotiating Routes: Ecologies of the Byways, are site specific projects across the country, that have an inter-disciplinary approach. By combining research and art creation by artists and local communities, it addresses the visible and invisible transformations currently taking place in their immediate environments. This year Sanchayan Ghosh, Shilpa Joglekar, Asim Waqif & Vaibhav Dimri and Surekha undertook projects in Birbhum (West Bengal), Khopoli and Panvel village schools (Maharashtra), Badrinath (Uttrakhand) and Jakkur Lake (Karnataka) respectively. Khoj actively programs a series of community-based art projects which run through the year both in and around Khirkee village. Projects like Telephone Pyaar (Abhinandita Mathur, 2009), Ghoomakkad Toli (Mrinmoyee Majumdar, 2009) and DELHI LOVES ME? (Navjot Altaf, 2006) are collaborations between artists and the residents of Khirkee. Community art projects at Khoj are creative and playful that produce new avenues of self expression, intervention, exchange and awareness in the community. Its role as a facilitator for its numerous community based art projects, Khoj was keen to nurture the interests of the youth of Khirkee. This has led to the formation of The Khirkee Hip-Hop Community Centre. The Khirkee Hip-Hop Community Centre offers a base from which the youth can cultivate a solid foundation of the art form, organize with each other and create artist collectives, and develop an identity to present within the larger hip hop dance scene in Delhi and beyond. They have demonstrated their talent on numerous occasions and events and have presented hip-hop performances to diverse crowds including the local community, artists and many international visitors as part of several KHOJ programmes. In 2010 Khoj published THE KHOJ BOOK which is a lavishly illustrated compendium containing five essays by eminent art critics and aesthetes, and features works and interviews with 101 Indian artists. It is a formidable archive and reference book of contemporary art of the last decade. KHOJ International Artists’ Association S-17, Khirkee Extension, New Delhi - 110017 T: + 91- 11- 29545274, E: interact@khojworkshop.org, W: www.khojworkshop.org
Established in 1994, Gasworks is a contemporary art organisation based in South London. The ambitious programme of exhibitions, residencies and events has earned Gasworks a strong reputation for discovering and introducing new local and international talent in London. Gasworks is committed to supporting research and production of new work by emerging and innovative artists. Over the last 15 years, the organisation has worked with hundreds of artists from more than 60 countries around the world. Many have gone on to become major names in the international art scene. These include Tania Bruguera, Subodh Gupta, Renata Lucas, Goshka Macuga, Yinka Shonibare and Javier Tellez. More recently, Gasworks has supported new talent such as Matthew Darbyshire, Simon Fujiwara, Mateo Lopez, Olivia Plender, Gabriel Sierra, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and The Otolith Group. Gasworks hosts up to sixteen residencies a year, encouraging the exchange of ideas between international and local practitioners. The open-ended and process-based nature of the residencies allows visiting artists to develop projects in response to their new context, or simply to conduct research. The artists in residence benefit from studio visits with London based curators as well as from a programme of public events, aiming to introduce the local audiences to international artists and their practice. The residencies and exhibitions programmes regularly cooperate,
Umesh Kumar’s open studio, Gasworks, Courtesy Gasworks.
Priya Sen, Artist in Residence at Gasworks January - March 2010. Open Studio. Courtesy Gasworks.
Gasworks
often to facilitate research and production for international artists invited to develop a project for the exhibitions and events programme. Gasworks is part of Triangle Network, an international network of artists and grassroots organisations supporting professional development and peer-to-peer exchange. It is this unique access to artists in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East that enables Gasworks to promote new and challenging views of contemporary art. Having facilitated residencies for winners of the Charles Wallace India Trust Award for over a decade, Gasworks has a continuous experience in working with artists from India. More recently, the organisation has developed a partnership with the Creative India Foundation to host a research based residency for an Indian artist. This residency aims to support new approaches to the practice of sculpture. In 2012, Gasworks also welcomes and Indian artist for a residency held in collaboration with the Natural History Museum. Researching and responding to the natural history illustration collection held at the museum, the chosen artist will create a new body of work to be exhibited in the Natural History Museum.
Gasworks 155 Vauxhall Street ,London SE11 5RH T: +44 (0)20 7587 5202, E: info@gasworks.org.uk W: www.gasworks.org.uk
Sheela Gowda, Of all people, 2011, installation view Iniva at Rivington Place. Photo: Thierry Bal
Iniva – Institute of International Visual Arts
Iniva creates exhibitions, publications, multimedia, education and research projects engaging with new ideas and emerging debates in the contemporary visual arts which reflect the diversity of contemporary society. Selected past exhibitions: Earlier this year Iniva presented the first solo exhibition in the UK by Bangalore based artist Sheela Gowda at Rivington Place. One of the leading artistic figures of her generation (b. 1957), Gowda is known for creating largescale sculptural installations. She takes everyday materials as the starting point for works that combine abstract forms with references to society. Collateral, a work made of burned incense ash, showed alongside a new commission, Of all people, made up of thousands of wooden chips carved by craftsmen into votive objects juxtaposed in a composition of larger frames and painted doors. Here the artist balances form, perception and legibility, simultaneously holding a number of elements in play. Nations is a grand-scale installation by artist NS Harsha and was exhibited for the first
time in Europe by Iniva at Rivington Place in 2009. It questions international politics and globalisation combining serious discussion with visual wit. 192 sewing machines are overlaid with calico painted flags signifying the countries that make up the United Nations. NS Harsha is an artist known for his sensitivity to the human condition, drawing on details of cultural traditions in India and subjects which are part of all our lives. He focuses on the whimsical as well as the tragic aspects of life. In 2009 Iniva also presented the first London exhibition of Zineb Sedira's video work Floating Coffins at Rivington Place. Floating Coffins was filmed on the little known but beautiful coastline of Mauritania. It is where the world's shipping is beached and broken up, drawing parallels with another of the region's characteristics - the harbour city of Nouadhibou, which has become a point of departure for African migrants trying to reach Europe. Floating Coffins was commissioned by New Art Exchange, Nottingham, and produced by Artsadmin.
Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) works within and outside the gallery space to broaden the audience for contemporary Indian art, enhance opportunities for artists, and establish a continuous dialogue between the arts and the public through education and active participation in public art projects. Established in 2007, FICA is a not-for-profit non-governmental organization and is based out of New Delhi, India.
(images top - bottom) NS Harsha, Nations, Installation view Iniva at Rivington Place in 2011, Photo: Thierry Bal Sudhir Patwardhan, detail: Lower Parel, 2001, copyright the artist
Upcoming exhibition: Iniva presents the Social Fabric exhibition at Rivington Place (19 January – 10 March 2012), in which textiles are used to explore labour, capital, colonialism and international trade. In the 19th century Karl Marx’s account of the cotton industry tracked fifty years of boom and bust and the effects this had on workers in Britain and its colonies (and in particular India). Social Fabric cross references historical and contemporary accounts, focusing on works by two artists, Sudhir Patwardhan and Alice Creischer, presented alongside extensive archival material.
Iniva Rivington Place, London EC2A 3BA, UK T: +44 (0)20 7729 9616, E: info@iniva.org W: www.iniva.org
Space: In 2009 FICA opened the Reading Room, an open access library with a large collection of books, journals, magazines and catalogues on modern and contemporary art from India and around the world. Located in the heart of South Delhi the Reading Room doubles as a space for FICA’s talks, workshops and discussions. Support Programmes: FICA extends support to the art community in India primarily through its three main annual programmes: •Emerging Artist Award (EAA) seeks to promote young Indian artists studying or practicing in the country who demonstrate extraordinary skill and promise in the visual arts. The recipient receives an international residency and a solo show in New Delhi. FICA’s current collaborators for EAA are Pro HelvetiaSwiss Arts Council, Vadehra Art Gallery and Ms. Shalini Passi, New Delhi. •Public Art Grant (PAG) is aimed at supporting artists interested in working in the public realm. It invites proposals for art projects with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the public domain in India. Through the grant, FICA aims to generate interest in public art projects in India, and mutually engage and initiate an open debate among artists, local communities and the public to look at shared environments in different ways. •Research Fellowship (RF) aims to provide an opportunity for intensive research in the field of visual arts. It lays emphasis on exploring innovative models of cross-cultural dialogue,
Interior view of the annual FICA group show titled 'To be continued.." held at Volte Gallery, Mumbai in 2011
Young at Art, art education workshop at the 'Art Celebrates' exhibition as part of the Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010, May 2010
and provides professional development opportunities for Indian researchers through interlocking activities. Applications are invited from curators and researchers who have an innovative Visual Culture project in progress, with specific focus on cultural issues and art in India. FICA’s current collaborators for RF are Goldsmiths, University of London, Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva) and The Delfina Foundation, London. FICA’s support programmes are open only to Indian citizens. All of these programmes are based on an open-application process, inviting applications from practitioners from across India, and is selected by an independent jury.
for art writers and curators, designed and conducted in collaboration with independent scholars. These include writing workshops for upcoming art writers and critics around specific themes, and a series of seminars on curation and curatorial methods. In 2011 FICA also offered its first history of art course which will now become a yearly feature.
Workshops & Discussions: A substantial part of FICA’s programming is aimed at exploring new platforms for dialogue in the arts, through regular talks, discussions, artist presentations, workshops and activities around ongoing exhibitions. These programmes have been decisive in fostering an audience who use this platform to network and exchange amongst themselves, exploring possibilities for other partnerships. Regular talks are hosted in collaboration with Khoj International Artists Association (New Delhi). Other collaborators include Nigah (a New Delhi based collective working for the rights of the LGBT community); Camerawork Delhi; Japan Foundation, New Delhi; School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Art, Resource and Teaching (A.R.T., Bangalore) and ART21; Pro Helvetia- Swiss Arts Council and several other organizations. Other than the programmes for a general audience, FICA also has specific programmes
Art Education for Children: Hands on and interactive, FICA’s Art for Children workshops give a free reign to a child’s imagination and creativity, while introducing them to art and its historical contexts. There is a great deal of focus on exploring art as a pedagogic tool, rather than learning it just as a skill. There are specific workshops being designed around ongoing exhibitions, where the aim is to allow children to see-and-learn and interact with the artworks themselves. Since 2011 FICA has started offering art courses with specific focus on Indian art and artists, in collaboration with Flow Associates (London, Delhi). FICA also has the long term Learning with Art project with Deepalaya School Kalkaji Extension, a school for economically disadvantaged children in Delhi. Here the emphasis is on direct learning from artists and resource persons, who use the classroom to explore various possibilities within the premise of an institutional space.
FOUNDATION FOR INDIAN CONTEMPORARY ART D-178, Okhla Phase 1, First Floor, New Delhi 110020, India T: +91 11 65474005, E: info@ficart.org, W: www.ficart.org
Participants TASNEEM ZAKARIA MEHTA IS THE HONORARY DIRECTOR OF THE THE DR. BHAU DAJI LAD MUMBAI CITY MUSEUM in Mumbai, India. The Museum is managed by a publicprivate partnership, a first for a cultural institution in India. The partnership involves the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, the Jamanlal Bajaj Foundation and the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH). ROSHNI BELAKAWADI IS CURRENTLY THE EXHIBITIONS AND PROGRAMME CO ORDINATOR AT NEW ART EXCHANGE, NOTTINGHAM. Born in Bangalore, India, Roshni completed an undergraduate Fine Art degree from Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, India and a Masters in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University. She draws upon from these two experiences and their different cultures in both her creative and professional practise. She is interested in the role of culture in today’s melting pot of identities. POOJA SOOD IS THE DIRECTOR OF KHOJ INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS ASSOCIATION which is an autonomous, registered society committed to experimentation and exchange in the visual arts in India. As regional coordinator, she has researched and developed the South Asian Network for the Arts which is part of the global Triangle Arts Network. She was Artistic Director and curator of 48C. Public. Art.Ecology, a public art project across 8sites in Delhi, commissioned by the Goethe Insitut, and GTZ New Delhi in December 2008. (www.48c.org) and KhojLive08, the first Live art festival in India. She was Curator of the Apeejay Media Gallery from 2002- 2007. In 2009 she was founding Director of ArThinkSouthAsia, (www.arthinksouthasia. org) an arts management programme for young cultural leaders in south Asia supported by the Goethe Institut and is the Project Director for the same. She is the editor of the The KHOJ BOOK: 1997-2007 contemporary art practice in India, published by Harper Collins, 2010, “Video Art in India”, 2003 and is working on a book on the project 48c. Public.Art.Ecology. She has an MBA (marketing), MA (Art History). She is currently a Chevening scholar on the Clore Leadership Programme, UK (2009-2011). She lives and works in New Delhi. ROWAN GEDDIS, RESIDENCIES COORDINATOR, GASWORKS is in charge of the International Residencies Programme that provides non UK based artists with the opportunity to live and work in London for three months. The programme aims to encourage international contacts for artists and to facilitate dialogue and exchange of skills and ideas through practice.
GRANT WATSON, SENIOR CURATOR AND RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, INIVA, coordinates Iniva’s research programme and publications, and is also involved with exhibitions. Untill April 2010 he was Projects Curator at MuHKA, Antwerp, where he was involved in curating exhibitions and artist projects at the museum including the Santhal Family positions around an Indian sculpture and Cornelius Cardew, as well as organising the lecture series Keywords. He was previously the Curator of Visual Arts at Project in Dublin between 2000 and 2005 where his programme focused on commissioning solo projects from contemporary Irish and international artists as well as occasional group exhibitions such as Communism in 2005 and Enthusiasm for Frieze Projects in 2006. Grant Watson was “Visiting Curator” for Documenta 12 where he researched the participation of contemporary Indian artists in the exhibition. He studied Curating and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College London. FOUNDATION FOR INDIAN CONTEMPORARY ART (FICA) is a not-for-profit non-governmental organization based out of New Delhi. Established in 2007, FICA works within and outside the gallery space to broaden the audience for contemporary Indian art, enhance opportunities for artists, and establish a continuous dialogue between the arts and the public through education and active participation in public art projects. FICA also runs a Reading Room in Delhi, which is a open library and resource centre on contemporary art, and the space doubles as the platform for FICA’s programming. Nida Ghouse will be presenting on behalf of FICA. NIDA GHOUSE, CHAIRPERSON, is the first recipient of the FICA-Delfina Research Fellowship in partnership with Iniva and Goldsmith’s Curatorial/Knowledge programme. Her recent projects include 14 Proper Nouns with Hassan Khan (London, 2011) and Untitled Exhibition # 1 with Padmini Chettur and the Clark House Initiative (Bombay, 2011). She was assistant curator of the 10th Sharjah Biennial, and has worked as co-curator for the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation at the Prince of Wales Museum on an exhibition concept that is yet to be realised. She started a research-based group project about movement across the Mediterranean Sea, an element of which was presented at Manifesta 8 (Murcia, 2010). She has collaborated across two artist-run initiatives: with CAMP—on projects including The Neighbour Before the House (Jerusalem, 2009) and Wharfage (Sharjah, 2009); and with Pericentre Projects—which she co-founded to program the Kharita Symposium on Urban Trajectories (Cairo, 2009). Her writing has appeared in publications such as Bidoun, The Exorcist - A Play Van Abbe Journal and ArtSlant, and she previously studied literature at the universities of Tufts and Oxford.
Workshops in Mughal Miniature Painting at the Bhavan Centre
The Visual arts department at the Bhavan Centre offers an ongoing programme of art exhibitions, talks, art workshops and film/video art screenings to engage a diversity of inter-generational audiences of all cultural backgrounds. From the ‘Art and Archaeology of the Indian SubContinent’ lecture series to contemporary Indian art conferences, visitors are invited to widen their horizons about Art practices within India and beyond. We are thankful for all collaborations, partnerships and sponsorships that allow us to deliver these programmes, and see these growing in the future.
of Indian Art and Culture THE BHAVAN Institute 4a Castletown Road
CENTRE West Kensington
London W14 9HE T 020 7381 3086/ 4608 E curator@bhavan.net W www.bhavan.net