International Workshop - Pune (2015)

15 February to 1 March 2015 KHOJ Pune International Artist Workshop

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Khoj and the Story of the Travelling Workshop In 1997, six young artists and one curator came together to found Khoj, an annual international workshop for contemporary art practice in Modinagar, in the outskirts of Delhi. The art eco-system of the country was still struggling to understand the emerging category of contemporary art, and the experimental practices of many of the participating artists were in urgent need of support, encouragement, and exposure. Together with the support of the Triangle Arts Trust, young art practitioners Bharti Kher, Subodh Gupta, Anita Dube, Manisha Parekh, Ajay Desai, P. S. Ladi and curator Pooja Sood reached out to their artist colleagues from across India, the subcontinent, and the world to organise the first 15-day international workshop, supporting experimental works that included performance art, site-specific practice, and other new modes of creative expression.

At a time when Indian artists felt isolated and unsupported, the annual Khoj workshop provided the possibility for young practitioners to create an open-ended, experimental space for themselves on their own terms. Khoj would be space where they could make art, independent of formal academic and cultural institutions, and outside the constraints of the commercial gallery. Over the next five years, the Khoj International Workshop at Modinagar became an annual pilgrimage for artists working with experimental contemporary forms. 2002 marked the transition of

Khoj from an annual workshop to a physical space for art practice, having acquired a building in the neighbourhood of Khirkee, an urban village in South Delhi. It also marked the beginning of the travelling workshop model, whereby the Khoj International Workshop was initiated by artist working groups in other cities within India. The workshop travelled far and wide, from Mysore in 2002 to Bangalore (2003), Mumbai (2005), Kolkata (2006), Srinagar (2007), Patna (2009), Dharamshala (2012), to the recent one held in the city of Pune in February, 2015.

The central idea was for Khoj to be a catalyst for local art incubation processes in various other centres of the country, where contemporary art practice was still emergent. The impulse of the workshops remained truly international, with a focus on artist networks in the Global South. A dynamic and effective methodology emerged, in collaboration with artist working groups in each of the cities, incubated over two years and together looking for interesting workshop sites in and around the cities, ready for site-specific experimental art. The 2015 workshop, titled ‘Refracting Rooms’, held in the city of Pune, was made a reality through the tireless work of Shraddha Borawake and the working group — the Good Artist of Pune. The site chosen for the workshop was the working studios of TIFA (Talera Institute of Fine and

Applied Arts) within the fascinating old Art Deco building of Hotel Wellesley in the heart of the city of Pune. With an exhilarating line-up of twenty Indian and international artists working with diverse mediums, Refracting Rooms aimed to push the envelope of dominant contemporary art practice within the city. With the growth of Khoj as a contemporary art organisation that aimed to stay at the very forefront of experimental contemporary practice, it was consolidated that there needed to be similar spaces for support of experimental art in other parts of the country, often away from metropolitan centres and big cities. The International Workshop became a crucial methodology to incubate and seed the potential for other artist-led organisations by providing support in terms of organisation and administrative knowledge, curatorial ideas, and access to international artists networks.

Today, the Khoj international workshop remains the flagship program of the organisation, with a formidable alumni of some of the best known Indian and international artists, still delighting in the infectious energy of a group of kindred creatives coming together to push the boundaries of contemporary art practice and energise every corner of the country.

With continuous support for local art scenes across India, we are truly energising and expanding the contemporary art eco-system of the country.

MODINAGAR MYSORE BANGALORE MUMBAI KOLKATA SRINAGAR PATNA DHARAMSHALA PUNE

Critic’s Note A SITE FOR EXCHANGE AND CHANGE OF SITES - Vrushali Dhage Khoj Pune International Artist Workshop 15th February - 1st March, 2015

The Khoj International Workshop, Pune, housed at the TIFA Working Studios, once Hotel Wellesley, an Art Deco structure was limiting and liberating simultaneously; to take it further, one could consider this contradictory simultaneity as the vein of the workshop. With twenty artists coming together from across the globe, backed with certain conceptual and technical understanding, and the thought of an imagined space – both of the city and the studios, as non-locals/others (as those not belonging to Pune), the workshop provided a space for reclusion as well as extensive, pulsating interaction. This personal as well as shared working space helped obliterate many barriers and preconceived notions like those of identities – fissured or coherent – of the recipient East and the hegemonic West, of spoken language as a hurdle, or even those of employing the conventional in opposition to newer mediums in their works. This further facilitated an understanding of creating a group united by the act to perform/ create works within a given time and space, creating what one could call a “temporary community”.

At this juncture, it becomes necessary to create a critical platform for reading the works of the artists. With the space of the workshop as the site for production of the works, the norms of reading the works need to be defined differently, taking cognizance of the workshop as a space for intellectual ferment and the city providing unknown and unfamiliar aspects to the artists. The parameter of the workshop could be read in a literal manner, as a space for intense engagement, interaction, intellectual brewing, discussing diverse subjects, issues, and even individuals, within a temporal span of fifteen days.

With respect to the creative processes, it hints at the not-so-mundane or familiar; a challenge, newness, which one could call a working break; nevertheless, a break from what is typical, safe, predictable, formulaic.

Here the more colloquial meaning of the workshop as an industrialized, mechanical space of labouring tasks seems less obvious, but is certainly of relevance.

As the working processes caught pace some artists started seeking help from various craftsmen, artisans, labourers, hotel staff, volunteers, etc., bringing in the polarity of the artisan/craftsman and the artist, the issue of participatory acts, and also of the authorship.

The presence of the different individuals, like a tailor stitching a gigantic skirt for Svea’s performance, or the hotel staff and construction workers for Katarzyna’s sound installation, or workers smashing glass for Prashant’s installation, or digging a grave for Shweta, or electricians being chased frantically, all asserted the presence and the indispensable need of the labour.

The polarity could be understood through the notion of the “end” versus the “finality” of a work. For the artists, it is the finality that brings in the notion of not just completion of the works but of the reception of the works by the viewers, and also of the possibilities of carrying it forward. At the same time, one cannot ignore the fact that the artists were constantly (re) working on their concepts, considering the available skill force, therefore to a large extent the works took shape taking this dependence into cognizance.

Another aspect lending to the creation of the works was the conceptual logic of a workshop. Some of the artists came with well-defined ideas, whereas others were willing to let the space structure the works; thereby bringing us to the notion of chance.

This could be read as accidental/unknown, in the simplest colloquial sense, finding something – by chance, allowing the artists to draw inspiration from all that accidentally caught their interest, hinting at the probability, of finding something, someone in a new or even a known space. To some, it was the workshop as an opportunity. To some it was the city, or the new sites and all that they provided, the people who contributed to the shaping of the work.

The Heritage Walk through the old city, the flea market explorations, and the casual visits to various pockets of the city either as a group or a scattered lot aiming to find something of interest proved crucial to many. These explorations of the streets and spaces, old or new, constantly reminded one of the notion of the flâneur of Baudelaire, as a casual wanderer of street-life, though in this case not as a dandy.

For instance, the impact of the walk through the Tambat Ali, on Emran Sohel and Szu-Han Chen was significant. To Szu-Han, it was the simultaneity of the craftsman’s community living and working together which instigated her to make a video on the same. For Emran, it was the first visual and auditory impression of the pulsating lane which was nearly replicated in an emblematic manner in his installation.

The choice of public spaces formed the ground for Dominic Nurre, to trace diverse opinions on the topic of homosexuality. The presence of the urinal in his work, inevitably hinted at Duchamp’s readymades and mass-production, insinuating the usage of the found objects in works of art as an outcrop of commodity fetishism, consumerism, and an allencompassing postmodernist tendency -- either by a direct representation, or the Shklovskyan sense as

estranged/defamiliarised (Eagleton, 1996, p. 3).

Kumar Prashant’s installation had a similar approach with the quintessential dominance of the design and a need for a visual spectacle, interestingly created through the upcycling techniques. Shweta Bhattad’s performance efficiently employed the notion of shock/ defamiliarisation, as she entered a coffin – an unusual visual. She addressed a truly cohesive community aspect, by involving farmers and organic product dealers from Pune to participate.

Similarly Rucha Kulkarni’s and Emran’s performances and resultant works had the inherent participatory necessity, efficiently complementing/attaining the tacit political intent. The works of Syaiful Ardianto, Minette Mangahas, and Emran involved the TIFA staff.

The participation could be read as a tool coupled with the usage of indecorous images from the local newspaper, and displaying them in a ‘place for all’a bathroom, to acerbically break the status of Fine Art in Syaiful’s work. For Emran, the presence of the oldest member of the staff symbolised a symbiotic coexistence over time in the given space. For Minette, it marked the material contribution of sarees by the female staff for her work, which drew largely from indigenous practices, used with a distinct relevance over a mere reference. The collaborative efforts with artists and volunteers could be traced in the performance of C.Krishnaswamy. Initially planned within the studio space, Krishnaswamy later chose

a crematorium, again an act of realigning the work to a distinct site of the city. Laurent Pinon’s work could be read as a continuation of his earlier practice in constructing the chrysalises, but with an involvement of the other artists, and also as the inculcation of the terrain on Pune.

Kartik Sood’s play on the retinal-cerebral and memory recollection and Snehal Kulkarni Dutt’s installation marked their departure from their respective painterly involvement to explore and experiment with multi-sensoriality. Shraddha Borawake and Rajyashri Goody too treaded different grounds. It is interesting to see the departure opted by these artists from their conventional means of study and working to venture new territories. Whereas, Vaibhav Raj Shah adhered to his earlier engagement of testing the acuity of visual perceptions in a conventional manner of grading. Though rooted in the desire for conjuring architectural bodies, Francesca Lalanne’s work received participation from resident artists. Of the artists who realigned their works to the studio space.

Amshu Chukki’s installation was characteristically dominated by text. As an illusionistic realness loomed over Amshu’s work, a deconstructive intent of the archetypal feminine identity found requisite assertion in the dynamic Svea Schneider’s six-stage dance performance, through efficient use of various niches and spaces of the studio.

Katarzyna Krakowiak’s work brings forward the crossreferencing of the incongruent immediacy of the surroundings sites and their individual specificities, their coexistence, and at times stark incongruity of labour and shared authorship. Finally, Immy Mali’s work could be read as a play of three levels – the studio space, the hotels tangible history, and the opening spectacle, thereby bringing us back to the idea of the workshop as a space for experimentation/exploration and of the chance – as an accidental occurrence/ opportunity/possibility.

Considering the logic of the workshop as a space for experimentation, and that of the aspect of chance helping shape the works, to look at the Open Studio as a planned exhibition of the finished works would be erroneous, as it provided a look or a peep into the working processes, modalities, and artistic concepts nearing culmination. The characteristic of the workshop, of openness and a necessity of hybridity, allowed various dissimilar works and processes and a varied gamut of expressions to be housed under one roof. With the artists residing together, be it while working, exploring the city, during the presentations and discussions, sharing their individual trainings, cultural and artistic outlooks, working processes, ideas and perceptions, contradictory experiences of their pasts and also their idiosyncrasies, helped strike a bond.

Notes and Further Reading Eagleton, T. (1996). Literary Theory: An Introduction. 3.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Seal, B. (2013, November 14). Baudelaire, Benjamin and the Birth of the Flâneur. Psychogeographic Review. Retrieved April 16, 2015, http:// psychogeographicreview.com/baudelaire- benjaminand-the-birth-of-the-flaneur/

Artists...

Pune, India Ironic Democracy/ 2015 Performance Site: V.R. Shinde Bridge, Pune

New York, USA DockingRoom / 2015 UV ink on flex, UV ink on vinyl, task hairs and urinals

Nagpur, India Farmers’ Haat / 2015 Performance

Miami, USA Metaphysics of Presence / 2015 Plaster, wood

Berlin, Germany On Her Own / 2015 Dance Performance Duration: 25 minutes

Syaiful Ardianto Jakarta, Indonesia Whisky Time Project / 2015 Print

Szu Han Chen Taipei, Taiwan Tambat Ali / 2015 Video

Vaibhav Raj Shah Mumbai, India Indian Dabbling in Basic Shapes in the Age of Transformer 3 / 2015 Drawing

Katarzyna Krakowiak Gdansk, Poland Best to the Best / 2015 Sound Sculpture

Laurent Pinon Paris, France Towards a Human Topography / 2015 Fabric, rope

Minette Lee Mangahas Bangkok, Thailand Blessing the Earth and Sky: Brick Abhishek & Bridge Abhishek / 2015 Multi-media site-specific installation

Svea Schneider

Pune, India Spider and his Spider Web Stuff they don’t want you to know / 2015 Duration: 10 min

Shimla, India Eyes Wide Shut / 2015 Installation

Kartik Sood

Arua, Uganda Paper Collage Partially burnt paper, acrylic paint and Ink

Snehal Kulkarni Dutt

Shweta Bhattad Francesca Lalanne

Anderu Immaculate Mali

Pune, India Daughters of Solstice / 2015 A Celestial State of Mind Duration: 21,600 Human Breaths

Dhaka, Bangladesh Dot’s – Dot’s – Dot’s….and Rhythm / 2015 Mixed Media

Shraddha Borawake

Rucha Kulkarni

Dominic Nurre

Emran Sohel

Pune, India Skyscape / 2015 Installation

Rajyashri Goody

Pune, India Medusa / 2015 Scrap wood and glass bottles

Kumar Prashant

Chennai, India This Impermanent Imperfect Form Surrendered to the Invisible Energy / 2015 Performance Video

C Krishnaswamy

Mumbai, India The Man Who Turned iInto a Mountain, an Ode to Marat / 2015 Site-Specific Installation

Amshu Chukki

Amshu Chukki The Man Who Turned into a Mountain, an Ode to Marat Site-Specific Installation The neighbours and the hotel staff of the Wellesley noticed a strange disappearance or a rather strange kind of transmutation that took place in room no. 30 B. The man who had checked into this room had not disappeared but was found transformed into a mountain while he lay in his bathtub. A doctor nearby who specialised in the repairs of a melancholic heart came to examine this strange incident; he inferred a diagnosis that the man was drowned not by love but by the lack of it. He said that it was under the burden of the utopia that he dreamed of and longed to be in. Some people say he was accustomed to sit hour after hour in his bathtub, from the disfiguring skin diseases from which he suffered, dreaming.

He dreamt of the many perfect worlds that he could imagine, worlds of impeccable perfection, worlds instilled with perfect measures of balance, worlds where statues kissed the sky, worlds that were devoid of scabs and rashes. A clean smooth world. He constructed maps of many mysterious worlds, these worlds like dreams where anything imaginable could be dreamed, like what once a young Venetian had said to the Emperor of the Tartars, “Where even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or its reverse, a fear.

Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is a secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”

Where grass fills the mouths of men who sleep in their dreams.

The man vanishes.

C. Krishnaswamy This Impermanent Imperfect Form Surrendered to the Invisible Energy Performance Video | Duration: 9 minutes 20 seconds The performance site was a crematorium on the banks of a river, a transformational space where the five elements come together - water, fire, earth, air, and space. Here, we come closer to the invisible energy surrounding us.

Boiled rice engulfs the artist’s breathing form and as he surrenders himself to the invisible energy, beyond the constant questioning of meaning and existence. Through the silence, one must re-enter the disguised form.

The performance is a detoxification of the breathing form, purified through a holistic process, thereby liberating our habitually disguised form. A similar process is used for Linga, where one covers a statue of Linga in boiled rice to end the reincarnation cycle.

Dominic Nurre DockingRoom UV ink on flex, UV ink on vinyl, task chairs and urinals A portrait of a young man printed twice, architectural in scale and mounted back to back dominates and shapes the room.

A cutout portrait of another man, also printed twice and back to back, stands as a figure. Two task chairs, with urinals where seats should be, are joined at their plumbing entries and exits. Doubles and pairs are formed throughout the space, setting a tone of sameness and homogeneity. There are couples in this room.

Docking is the process of joining. The name, DockingRoom, simultaneously refers to: A. a (space) vessel coming to port, and B. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docking_(sex) Both situations reference a giving and taking; goods, ideas, values, intimacy, flesh, etc. A. requires difference while B., sameness. Differences, materials, fluids are imported and exported, blended and swapped, equally, unequally.

Maps towards sameness have been drawn.

Emran Sohel Dot’s – Dot’s – Dot’s…and Rhythm Mixed Media My visit to Tambat Ali made me feel a sound; a rhythm that is not being made consciously. I have presented the rhythmic sound in this room with psychic. The sound echoes in the room and envelopes the viewer. They can find the same rhythmic feeling in this room as in Tambat Ali. Tambat Ali sounds like an orchestra in action, as the craftsmen tap, hammer and beat their material rhythmically.

Francesca Lalanne Metaphysics of Presence Plaster, wood The series is a sculptural sketch that aims to analyse the concept of the “body as a temple”. It also considers the relationship between architecture and the construction of self.

Although the body has been coined to be a temple, the practice of entering a temple to obtain a sense of transformation is fascinating and popular.

Presence has been acknowledged in many aspects; sound, light, objects and form, or the absence of it. All are part of the apparatus of the presence. The attempt is to initiate the concept by casting voluntary bodies using materials like wood and plaster. The figurative play of forms allows for the viewers’ own perception of development and presence.

Anderu Immaculate Mali 18 MUSTS 3x3.2m Paper Collage Partially burnt paper, acrylic paint, and ink Rules have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

Be it in the society, at home, or in school, they have been a block to many aspects and discoveries of my human existence. In the 18 MUSTS, I seek to break the boundaries that rules and conditions can subject one to. To create a platform to express and allow the outburst of human emotions in situations where one has been under oppression.

Rooted in the fact that the building will be transformed into an unconventional art space, a wall with partially burnt cash memos of the hotel dating from 2005 to 2012 was built. The memos are a conformance by the clients of the hotel to be under the rules. The receipts are partially burnt as a representation of the past life of the building, and its present restoration to a second life. The wall was then crashed through by a motorbike and later torn to pieces by the audience as a symbolic gesture of breaking the rules.

Kartik Sood Eyes Wide Shut Installation What is inside is outside, what is outside is inside. We already know everything, as we spend more time living, we just remember. All knowledge gained is memory revisited. The work explores the constant shift between the subjective and objective; by imitating the process of blinking one’s eyes, it symbolises the act. With haunting music recorded, it invokes memory. The constant shift of flickering light appeals the dream state. The images on the walls are constantly appearing and disappearing, challenging the clarity of perception.

Katarzyna Krakowiak Best to the Best Sound Sculpture To understand Katarzyna’s work, one needs to release all ideas of one’s understanding of space as only a purely visual dimension.

She incorporates sound as a tool to expand the sensory experience of architecture.

The work ‘Best to the Best‘ challenges the fundamental concepts of what space and architecture offer. She is directly linking the meaning of the outside and the inside.

The project involves the construction crane opposite the site, belonging to a leading city developer to shift its attention to gently nudge the humble, heritage Hotel Wellesley complex as an act to open a dialogue.

A purposeful hindrance of a handpound mud structure made using traditional building techniques is placed at the entrance of the complex to fill an earlier empty space. Feel free to feel claustrophobic.

45°

Laurent Pinon Towards a Human Topography Fabric, rope This installation is a transversal exploration of boundaries, transitions, relations in which I am looking at the geography of Pune as a city planner, an architect, a visitor, and an artist.

Spending time in Pune has been an opportunity to apply this unique point of view to the city and its inhabitants, and to document the results.

Our past, present, future, and possible lives are among us.

Every change in our life leaves behind a chrysalis; a trace of our previous incarnation. These chrysalises are ephemeral, and soon vanish. The strings that support them are also supported by them; they concretise our invisible connections to one another and to the outside world.

The viewer creates their own experience by shining a light on what they choose to see. The shadows cast on the wall become manifestations of every individual gaze, changing with the movement of the visitors. The variable dimensions of the shadows refer to the allegory of Plato’s cave — after all, isn’t our reality just the exterior projection of what’s in our minds?

Minette Lee Mangahas Blessing the Earth and Sky: Brick Abhishek & Bridge Abhishek Multi Media Site-Specific Installation Brick Abhishek uses grey heavy bricks found on the property.

Placed at the base of the stairs, the building’s central channel, they symbolise the foundation on which we stand, and the raw materials of civilisations. Once formed by hand, now formed by a mould machine, they represent the evolution of labour, building, and our changing relationship with the earth.

Bridge Abhishek uses an array of soft, translucent saris donated by women of the community to form a bridge; the feminine counterpoint to the brick. Worn by women for ages, in all walks of life, they nod to the labour that conceives, cultivates, and guides growth. Milk, a substance that is derived from the body and nourishes the body, is poured on bricks and bridge as a prayer for this fledgling institution. May it flourish to nurture and be nourished by artists for many years to come.

Kumar Prashant Medusa Scrap wood and glass bottles The mythical Greek figure Medusa was very beautiful and extremely dangerous. Her paradoxical nature is reflected in contemporary society’s tendency to value novelty and artificiality. A luxury lifestyle has a beautiful façade, but what we do not see is its impact on the world. More often than not, it is the luxurious objects we surround ourselves with which threaten our very existence; polluting our lungs and minds. But, it is nearly impossible to separate our attraction to this lifestyle from the destruction it causes.

This attraction to artificial objects is also present in the natural world, when animals swallow plastic, mistaking it for food.

Inspired by natural forms, such as ice or rain, the installation questions materiality and consumption. Created using a recycled wooden base and glass, the work is a possible transformation of these waste materials, which gives them a new life.

Rajyashri Goody Skyscape Installation Laws of Manu Circa 100 BC From his mouth God created the Brahman (priest), from his arms the Kshatriya (ruler), from his thighs the Vaishya (commoner), and from his feet the Shudra (servant) Chapter 1, Verse 51 Skyscape is a tangible interpretation of the Hindu Varna system, where, according to popular belief as well as sacred Hindu texts such as the Manusmriti, it is believed that every caste comes from, and therefore represents, a certain part of the human body.

The position of Dalits, or ex-untouchable community, is below the Shudras, below the feet. For centuries, their caste occupation has been to handle and dispose of all forms of pollutants, be it carcasses, dead bodies, excreta, and all bodily fluids. In fact, they themselves are deemed polluting and impure.

Though the practice of untouchability is officially banned in India today, it is still widely practised across the country in various forms, and many attempts by Dalits to break out of the clutches of caste have been suppressed with systemic forms of violence as well as horrific brutality and bloody retaliation, even to basic human rights such as education.

Rucha Kulkarni Ironic Democracy Performance Site: V.R. Shinde Bridge, Pune

‘Ironic Democracy’ was a performance aimed to put forward the contradictions regarding ‘Freedom of Speech’ in India. This was to show the irony between the ‘freedom’ mentioned in the constitution and the ‘freedom’ allowed by current socio-political institutions.

During this performance, I stood fully wrapped in plastic for 45 minutes, in front of the backdrop, which has golden letters saying,

‘I DO HAVE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT, SPEECH AND EXPRESSION’. This is a satire on the fact that in India, despite being one of the biggest democracies, the fundamental right of freedom of expression is being questioned.

The reason I performed on this bridge was also to pay tribute to the social activist, Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, who was shot to death on the 20th of August, 2014.

Shweta Bhattad Farmers’ Haat Performance The concept of the Farmers’ Haat comes as a continuation of my engagement with the farmers from India and across the globe. Local farmers have been invited to set up stalls to sell their organic or low residual produce. The aim is to create awareness about the practice and give them the due dignity of being producers of the prime source of human sustenance.

The performance evokes a sense of hope, not by poeticising the current scenario, but as an attempt to focus on the issues and take responsibility as a community. I simply take the form of a medium.

Shraddha Borawake Daughters of Solstice A Celestial State of Mind Duration: 21,600 Human Breaths This project was born from the need to get out of photography and work with the language of light, sound, and text installation only. The venue of the hotel has always inspired me to heavily interact with the corridors, and manifest my imagination through massive transformation of the actual structure. Inspired by my last work made in TIFA, ‘Camera Obscura’, I have used the same process of blocking light at the workshop. This time, in room no.

31, I have explored an ongoing food and photography project, ‘Daughters of Solstice’, without the lens. I used ‘channis’ (seives), lights, and darkness to create a sensual experience of a celestial atmosphere. Transforming the entire space into a vacuum of thought and expression, with planetary sounds, ice, and one tiny ring of light entering a blacked-out studio. The Sun, the Moon, and the reigning deities are presented in this experiential work.

The illuminated crescents of light share aspects of a particular female energy that has travelled from the Sun to the Moon for the entire duration of the workshop. Inspired by Lalita Maha Tripura Sundari from Shri Vidya, I continue to share knowledge and raise the question of roots, rituals, and cultural identity in the Pune version of ‘Daughters of Solstice’, in March 2015.

Snehal Kulkarni Dutt Spider and His Spider Web Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know Duration: 10 min The dichotomy in understanding nature has interested me for some time now. By dichotomy, I refer to the two-fold, and at times complex, meanings that appear in my mind while observing my surroundings. In my process, I experiment with the object of interest, its metaphors, and the relation between them. Even though the inferences I make may not be true, they are subject to my mental cognition. These ideas have given me an insight into understanding the world poetically.

The present work is a piece of fiction where there is metaphorical relationship between a spider and its web. Curious about the relation between the phenomenon of nature and the phenomenon of the rational world we live in. I tried to look deeper at the relationship between a spider, which can see various dimensions of an object with its multiple eyes, and its web, which can obscure our vision. This is similar to people who have information but cling to their own social and political position by using power to manipulate and confuse others, preventing them from getting a clear understanding of reality.

Svea Schneider On Her Own Dance Performance Duration: 25 minutes Creation | Confinement | Shedding | Cleansing | Death | Self The female identity is a product of century-long classifications, definitions, and constructs. It has been subjectified and objectified through a range of discourses. Throughout cultural, social, and political history, the male gaze has created a narrative for the female identity, and has defined the female body through dualistic concepts. Archetypes are universal and mythical ideas inscribed on the female identity, ideas of identity that reside in the female body that have been injected into our consciousness by the male gaze.

“On Her Own” is a moving dance performance that takes the audience on a journey to explore female identity and witness the creation, confinement, shedding, and an eventual death of the four universal archetypes prescribed on the female body. The performance moves through six different areas of the building, each time exploring a different realm of the codification, categorisation, and impact of confinement given to women throughout cultural, social, and political history. Through a synthesis of choreographed movement, improvisation, sound, paint, diverse props, and other artistic elements, “On Her Own” rewrites the female body by placing the woman as the protagonist in creating her own identity and shedding malemade conceptions of her.

Dancers: Karishma Harlaka, Jhanvi Pathak, Tejasvani Patil, Rajyashree Ramamurthi, Svea Schneider.

Syaiful Ardianto Whisky Time Project Print While creating the artwork, I drew similarities between Pune and Jakarta, the busy traffic, and the behaviour of people. I chose a local newspaper bought at the roadside as my material, because I am inspired by the images of the local; the closeness to the community or society, due to cultural events featured. Citizens know what is going on today, and newspapers can provide a different experience for the people who read it, because I think the news in a newspaper is the real culture that exists in the city of Pune.

The images exhibit diversity, ranging from advertising beauty, people dying, luxury commodities, celebrity images, housing advertisements, etc. I combine the images randomly with text taken from the newspapers too, creating a nature of teasing and mocking. There is not necessarily any relation between one image and the other. The concept of playing with images and text are applied to me when working.

In the process of making the collage, various people came forward. The security guards, hotel employees, and people passing by were curious about my work, and some even interacted with me. The choice of the studio space has helped this interaction. For me, the interaction is more critical than the final work. The most important point of this residency is how artistic activity becomes part of the community and people can join in any artistic activity, such as the security guard who is interested in making a collage, because he saw the familiar images in his life. It’s a kind of participatory art.

After the interaction and response, I then concluded that in the end the physical work that I do is not so important, but the crucial aspect is when I get the impact during the making of the work, where people are smiling and commenting on images and text. They certainly have the reference and reading newspapers that contain news daily and they consume every day, until finally they are interested in participating and making a collage too. Images of the newspaper are easily recognisable and easy to digest, because each morning, they get to see or read newspapers.

I deliberately chose an existing workspace that ordinary people walk through, back and forth, because I wanted no interaction with the person who passed it to get a response or input on my final work. My observation through this process is that the artwork should have a relationship with their daily lives.

Szu-Han Chen Tambat Ali / 2015 Video Following the steps of a little boy from the coppersmith (tambat) community, walking through the alleys, the video portrays the life of the vicinity. The video brings focus to a disappearing industry and the beautiful sound created by the artisans. The video was shown to the people of Tambat Ali in a local temple.

Videographer - Varun Dutt & Sharad Deshmukh Photographer - Chaitanya Guttikar Video Editor - Riya Jindal

Vaibhav Raj Shah Indian Dabbling in Basic Shapes in the Age of Transformer 3 Landscape painting was my earliest fascination. It was never my intention to get drawn into debates over beauty, its objectivity, or eternal qualities. It began with putting paint to canvas superficially, creating ideal portraits of Mumbai, and elevating its spaces from the everyday squalor of an overpopulated city bursting at its seams. I started to see this macro example of a city and its workings and internalising it.

I wanted to paint pretty pictures of these landscapes, but what I encountered was both a failure of the medium to capture the qualities in front of me, and more importantly a failure of the scene to meet some prescribed ideals of beauty. I found myself perpetually “correcting” the city within my work. And so I veered into a different manner of description. In the photo and video works entitled “Superficial”, I started with these inescapable gaps and failures, and simply assessed various sites around the city, giving them scores out of hundred. These “marks” (refer to art work) became my preferred use of the landscape mode.

“Marks” should be understood in the double sense of the word: (1) the act of mark-making or inscription, and (2) assessing and objectifying in the quest for idealism. To document these interventions instantaneously, paint on a canvas proved insufficient. Paint only made its way to the pavement, or the bench, or someone else’s graffiti, and I clicked a photo or took a video. This eventually seemed to be the only way I saw myself possibly making landscape painting, and indeed the only remaining possibility of what landscape painting could be.

About Good Artists of Pune The Good Artists was born out of a small communitybuilding project created in reaction to the current state of fragmented cultural affairs of the rapidly growing metropolis of Pune. This project was ignited by a need for change. Through its evolution grew a disruption of the status quo amongst local artists, galleries, institutions, patrons, and viewers, by asking: “What is a ‘good’ artist?

Who sets the standard? And where does the newcomer immerse oneself? How does one engage fellow artists in meaningful artistic exchange through a grassroots process?” I felt the city lacked a cohesive platform for contemporary interdisciplinary arts when I moved back from New York City, yet inspired, I yearned to find my artistic community in Pune.

On 12/12/12 GAP launched its Facebook page and shortly afterwards, ‘Mixers’ – a number of open networking discussion forums with diverse outreach and great attendance. Simultaneously, initiatives like Art Today, Pune Biennale, Chitrabodh, Chitra Samvaadh at Mahahrashtra Cultural Centre, Intach Heritage Walks Pune, Artsphere, and Gyaan Adab were offering new interactive, nurturing avenues for artists, on their respective sides of the river. Pune, being a highly segregated social space, lacked a common ground for healthy interaction across barriers of language, class, generation, medium, caste, and gender within the contemporary art context. Thus, GAP was welcomed. Its strong interdisciplinary focus offered a non-judgmental and all-inclusive open platform.

By the end of 2013, Pooja Sood, the Director of KHOJ, gave a talk at the fourth GAP Mixer at Ayatana Gallery.

A vibrant affair, the space was bustling with about one hundred art enthusiasts, practitioners, and patrons. The prospect of a KHOJ workshop in Pune was presented to the wider community of serious artists and supporters.

This launched GAP into a dynamic, tumultuous, and gratifying journey.

In mid-2014, Hotel Wellesley – an art deco raw space still under transformation to become the future TIFA Working Studios – came on board as the venue sponsor for the international workshop. Our date was set with Trishla Talera and artists Prashant Kumar, Rajyashri Goody, Rucha Kulkarni, Snehal Kulkarni, and I forming the local working group.

Here, a spontaneous collaboration with Parris Jaru and Kiritin Beyer, two travelling artists formerly associated with Gelato Arts Salon in Brooklyn, gave birth to GAP Co[Lab]. A pop up, ‘underground’ public art event at TIFA was conducted over the weekend of 31st October to -2nd November 2014. We had an attendance of 400 people who came to interact with our topic of ‘Natural Pigments.’

This moment, ignited by the energy of the workshop, we set out to convince funders and art patrons in Pune to sponsor our ephemeral, experimental, public art workshop consisting of 20 artists from across the world.

Our enthusiasm found many deaf ears, and our art lay hidden behind murky external visions of commercial concepts such as logo placement, deliverables, return value, and relevance.

At this juncture, Arti Kirloskar helped us organise a fundraiser. Another mentor, Satish Magar, helped us reinstate, “if culture survives, then the city survives.” We wanted to share our interactive public art with the overwhelming influx of the massively growing populace of Pune. It was the need of the hour, for artists as well as the public, as things began to fall into place. Finally, it was with the help of KHOJ and our growing network of supporters, who contributed in small ways, with their time, effort, financial generosity, and creative bartering, which helped us bring the workshop together.

The site, Hotel Wellesley and our residence Hotel Shalimar, was the true heart of the workshop. GAP

Mother Sarita Challa, with the help of Prutha Girme and Prutha Pathak, kept the atmosphere warm with their dedicated contribution to being there, no matter what.

We were reminded of Pune’s charm by the overwhelming response of the culinary kindness of both the city’s eating establishments as well as home cooked food. A total of thirty meals for thirty people served everyday at TIFA were sent with love, appreciation, and admiration towards the artists. Such soulful generosity helped us believe more in our cause.

to the art and us artists wholeheartedly. Rucha and Snehal Kulkarni were monumental in bridging the gap between the traditional side of town, and Trishla Talera hosted Punekars from both sides of the river, merging disparities that can divide the scene in Pune. Thanks to the dedication and network of Rajyashri Goody, Prashant Kumar, and Sarita Challa, GAP was enabled to provide immense support to artists and their projects on a large scale.I am truly grateful to Pooja Sood for patiently guiding us through every step of this journey.

The artists embraced the blank canvas of the site.

The energy of the city was exuberant, productive and enthusiastic. The workshop space was abundant with all kinds of experiments. With daily evenings full of sharing, discussion and creative sessions, the artists got to know each other deeply. Our neighbors, ranging from IT professionals to Pune Municipal Transport department mechanics, frequented the space and engaged with our works in progress. The time and effort of volunteers, like Ashwini Chothe, Vinit Nemmaniwar, the Hotel Shalimar staff, and many more individuals all over the city aided the realisation of vibrant concepts through evolving grassroots structures.

The power of KHOJ has inspired and catalysed vast amounts of people and energy to come together and implement change on home ground. Subsequently, GAP has innovated many new paths of thought and interaction through the impactful and original events it has put out to the city of Pune - as an artist run, socially engaged, grassroots practice.

As the small window of fifteen days shut and it was time for the much awaited Open Day, our new family of creative spirits boasted a wide array of works that were, in many ways, an ode to our city of Pune. We inaugurated the event with a bit of flair – a motorcycle stunt by Prashant Kumar – and embraced an unforeseen power cut with live saxophone rhythms. The people poured in, along with sudden rain on the 1st of March, 2015.

I believe that Khoj Refracting Rooms by GAP created history in the artistic space of Pune, not only because of the high standard of experimental art that was produced and performed within such a short span of time, but also because the public of Pune responded

Although Pune has been a tough city to crack , its small town vibe has proven that there is room to foster artistic communities. Such instant connections in combination with throbbing urban growth and evolving possibilities have allowed for dynamic dialogues and activation all over. Everyone from artists, institutions, to patrons are continuing to support and engage in better art practices as a result of the catalytic effort made by our artist community. The Good Artists of Pune continues to navigate a still burgeoning relationship between art, cities and community.

The ripple effect continues…

Shraddha Borawake Founder - The Good Artist Program

Special thanks to the people who have spent time and effort towards building the GAP community The Talera family The Borawake family Sarita Challa Bamboo Curtain Studio Alison Wynn Benjamin Lenzner Sharad Deshmukh Varun K Dutt Bhushan Deshmukh Sangram Sadhale Neha Mathrani Zuri Camille de Souza Prutha Girme Prutha Pathak Jayraj Patil Ashwini Chothe Vinit Nemmaniwar Imrat Benjammin Reid-Howell Govind Thakkar Behram Sidhwa Sunil Chandani Khodu Irani Vijay Gasti Vijay Paspor Shankar Nivedita Joshi Chopra Sandy Singh Nikita Naiknavare Abhishek Nilambar Sanjeev & Priyamvada Pawar Dr. Kiran Shinde Minoti Makim Roshan Netalkar Saviola de Mello Ruby Jhunjhunwala Rinul Pashankar Sasha Anand Promona Sengupta Karan Kaul Manoj VP Vikram Bhalla of TWO Design Jesh Krishna Murthy of ANIBRAIN Shalaka and Tanya of Sakal Aditi Kulkarni of Unbound Studio

Randhir Khare of Gyaan Adab Hotel Shalimar Staff Amol Mankeekar Raza Siddique Rohinesh Kondhalkar Ganesh Harimkar Prithviraj Nimbalkar Shantanu Raut Rushikumar Chaudhry Varun Shah Pushkar Okhade Kaustubh Zawar Ronak Naik Chinmay Modi Saumitra Shah Deepak Wavre Gopal Survase Manisha Abhay Karishma Harlaka Jhanvi Pathak Tejasvani Patil Rajyashree Ramamurthi Svea Schneider Anurag Ramgopal Varun Venkit Balu Sandilyasa Waylon AR D’Mello Karthik Natarajan Shruti Nambiar Devika Sekhar Sumona Bose Gaurinandan Mangaonkar Shiraz Irani Rosie Gordon-Wallace Deborah Willis Abhishek Kharosekhar Preetal Dongre Burhan Nagarwalla Arjun Rajkishore Padmaja Jalihal Harshvardhan Kadam Snehal Chordia Goyal Nilesh Kharade

Individual Sponsors Priyanka Deokar Arti Kirloskar Ashwin Rajagopalan Shivanjali Sethna Gauri Kirloskar Kolenty Janhavi Borawake Morse Latika Padgaonkar Parimal Chaudhari Padmaja Shirke Suresh Chabbria Geeta Samarth Sponsors Weikfield Kirloskar Vasundhara Nanded City Kinetic Green Sakal Times Norwegian Embassy Goethe Institute Polish Institute Miami Dade County Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator Supporters Metric Global Pashankar Press AccelTree Software Chatterjee & Lal Cotmac P.N.Gadgil & Sons Borawake Foundation Camlin Carpe Diem Form3d Audio & Aux Reliance AIMS Rebirth Indranil Garai & Associates Qbana Designs Pvt Ltd INTACH Kare Nirman Frames Girme Farms

F & B Sponsors High Spirits Café Blue Frog Malaka Spice Prem’s Ku Kooch Ku Swig Good Juicery ABC Farms Dorabjee’s Farmer’s Markets by Karen Anand Maratha Samrat Bubsterr’s Shee Kimling The Asian Box Yogurt Labs Krusty’s

Photography Alison Wynn Bhushan Deshmukh Film Ben Lenzner Critics Essay Editing Promona Sengupta & Shraddha Borawake Copy Editor Varun Mukerji Catalog Design Harshita S K Publishing Khoj

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About TIFA working Studio’s In order to evolve India’s cultural associations, the arts must be at the forefront of future endeavours.

TIFA Working Studios provides artists with a stimulating, equal, and peer-driven professional studio environment in which to explore the boundaries of art & design. We aim to nurture emerging creative individuals to achieve excellence by providing them with diverse exposure from which to flourish. Through a variety of targeted modules facilitated by mentors, residents learn, interact, and collaborate, and are inspired by artists from the wider local & global community.

TIFA Working Studios resides in a 1910’s Art Deco style hotel in Pune. Being located in the marked centre of the city, it offers a pulsating urban landscape allowing for strong connections with the community. The studios at TIFA have a unique layout, where they are interlinked, thus providing for fluid interaction of areas and association between artists. The architecture reveals small surprises, the nook under the stairs, the wooden bridge on the top floor, and the empty elevator shaft swishing in light at every level.

We believe in creating an exposure of contemporary art to Pune to broaden the spectrum of artistic practice locally, and catalyse the social evolution of society.

The Ripple Effect: Rajyashri Goody was invited for a residency at Bamboo Curtain Studio, Taiwan, through an Exchange Program set up with Refracting Rooms supported the Ministry of Culture Taiwan, BCS and The Good Artist. This program sustains till date, as C Krishnaswamy is chosen to attend this year.

Vaibhav Raj Shah was invited to make a KHOJ film.

Amshu Chukki and Dominic Nurre organized a collaborative exhibition at Helper Projects, Brooklyn, New York.

S’Han Chen’s work ‘Tambat Ali’ was exhibited in Taipei, Taiwan. Her collaborative work created at the workshop ‘Kal 2015’, with Vaibhav Raj Shah, Karthik Sood, Trishla Talera and Bhushan Deshmukh was screened at Art Basel, Hong Kong.

Resident photographer Alison Wynn exhibited her documentation of Refracting Rooms at the gallery À Côté, Paris.

The Good Artists of Pune engaged in a grassroots cross-cultural collage dialog with Cut & Rescue - Jakarta at Cocomai – a space created by workshop patrons Shivanjali Sethna and Divya Kapoor At COP 21, Paris, Shweta Bhattad further explored her performance ‘Faith’ that was born at KHOJ Refracting Rooms, and received massive support through GAP community Rajyashri Goody, Laurent Pinon and Alison Wynn in the larger context of the Eroles Project.

Shraddha Borawake and Ruby Jhunjhunwala collaborated with Quilt Culture a social initiative by Rucha Kulkarni; for the mixed media show ‘Her: Within and Without’.

This exhibition flourished in the vibrant energy and support from the newly built art community.

Workshop volunteer Prutha Girme is now heading the Piramal Art Residency in Vaikunth, Thane.

Grassroots interaction and community involvement with TIFA Working Studios continues to aid the upcoming international residency program held at the venue. TIFA’s first residency program ‘Artel’ successfully maintained relations initiated by KHOJ and GAP, giving a home to many activities for local as well as international artists and students under the leasership of Trishla Talera.