When Mumbai-based Sagar Shiriskar arrived at Khoj Studios almost a month ago, he had a faint idea of what he was going to create during his residency here. But whether that idea would fructify into something concrete, he wasn’t sure about that. After all, the memory of an article that he had read some time back about a calligrapher was lying dormant in some compartment of his head. With a strong urge to find the ‘katib’, a traditional calligrapher, in the congested bylanes of Old Delhi, Sagar reached Urdu Bazar and as luck would have it, entered the bookshop, where the man he had read about was working quietly in a corner.
In the first couple of days, Sagar, filmmaker, cinematographer and photographer, explained his purpose of visit to Mohammad Ghalib, who allowed him to document his craft while he was working. Since the 55-year-old was extremely busy during the day, Sagar had to wait for meal breaks to strike a conversation with him. “But these meals breaks ended during the month of Ramzan. So, I started following him to his home and in this process was able to document his journey from the shop to home as well,” says 27-year-old Sagar, an FTII alumnus. The culmination of this exercise has resulted in a series of monochromatic photographs, accompanied by texts, which has been titled as ‘Katib-e-Taqdeer’.
In another work, a mixed-media 6X4X4 feet tower-like installation, artist Sahil Naik has re-imagined Khirkee in the post-apocalyptic scenario and how the area that represents a melting pot of culture and several ethnicities, can be rebuilt post destruction. The tower, 25-year-old Sahil says, resembles the Tower of Babel, which is believed to propagate the idea of unity.
While Sahil’s works always have a strong reference to pop culture and mythology, the Goa-based artist was fascinated by the “closed” architecture of Khirkee where he says, buildings are touching each other so precariously that one careless act could spiral into an unimaginable catastrophe. “The place where I come from is green and open. It was this morbid curiosity that I decided to make architecture my point of investigation,” he says. “So, I am investigating urban neighbourhoods as sites of trauma, largely bringing to the conversation the nature of housing structures, their proximity and thereby their vulnerability to man-made catastrophes.”
Mentorship
The two, along with three other young art graduates, were selected for 14th edition of the Peers programme, a platform to provide infrastructure, inspiration and mentorship to emerging artists and art practices. Their selection was made by an eminent jury comprising, artists and art educators Arun Kumar HG, Gigi Scaria, Rakhi Peswani and Rohini Devasher. And, in a month, the work they have created in-house is displayed in the show, titled, “Peers Emerging Artists Show 2017.”
As there was no restriction and artists were given the freedom to explore varied ideas, 28-year-old Tanaya Kundu was moved by the disparity she witnessed in this locality, where on one side of the road life was abuzz with enthusiasm as people spilled in and out of the malls, a symbol of consumerism. But on the opposite side, for people on the roadside, living simply meant an act of survival and struggle. Looking at the enormous class divide, she created a performance based piece that she performed in the mall. At the opening of the exhibition on Thursday evening, she also performed, in which her back was facing the audience and a row of candles was lit around her. Facing the wall, she sat, silently. There was no action, but that act of deafening silence continued till the last flames of candle faded, slowly. “I am using my act as a tool to talk about sexual abuse. Usually, the perception is that it happens only with girls, but men too are a victim of this. My performance had subtle references to it,” she says.
The youngest artist Ashish Dhola, 23, has created a sensor-controlled kinetic mic that turns in the direction of a viewer on its own, whereas Vrishali Purandare has used clay as a medium to create a sculptural work.
“The initial idea I had about this sculpture changed quite a lot during my time at the residency,” points out Vrishali.
“I was first planning to build a structure of clay around myself, but then I realised that it was making me isolated and that idea of isolation was not what I wanted to create.” So, she used the tree, which is in the studio, and started building the wall around it. “The tree is a symbol of resistance to isolation. The idea is to explore the desire of being engulfed by material completely,” she says.
(On till June 25 at Khoj Studios, Khirkee Extension)
