The 14th edition of India International Centre’s annual festival “IIC Experience” will commence from Saturday with the Centre coming alive with exhibitions, film screenings, performances and cuisine.
Contemporary art at the fest will be represented in “Carrying Roots Around”, an exhibition curated by Manish Pushkale and featuring works by 10 well known artists including Ganesh Haloi, Atul Dodiya, Jaishree Chakraborty, V. Ramesh, Veer Munshi, Akhilesh and Nancy Adajania among others. “The artists carefully selected, range from senior to mid-career and the exhibition is a composition around the metaphor of roots. All of them have been working keenly over a long period of time on the chosen theme. The exhibition is not a result of the subject or the topic but a result emerged from the convictions of the artists who are for a long time on this question and dealing with tracing their roots.”
Like works vary from being abstract to representative and figurative. Shedding light Pushkale says, “Ganesh Haloi, 82, and the senior most participant landscape paintings are about the place he belongs to before Partition, today’s Bangladesh. Likewise, Jaishree Chakraborty of Kolkata traces the change in flora and fauna, like fishes, snails, waterfowls, aquatic plants, wild flowers and grass of the rich marshlands known as Kuchinan due to earthquake in the 18th Century and have now become residential settlement Salt Lake, where she resides. Veer Munshi from Kashmir living in exile in Delhi, reflect about the place he left.”
Giving a fair representation to the younger generation of artists is “Rumbles in the Playpen”, curated by Tarini Sethi. The eight participating artists include Harsh Nambiar, Ishan Lamba, Ayesha Singh, Mehr Chatterjee, Aditya Dutta and Jaiveer Singh among others. This outdoor exhibition will display different genres and materials like ceramics, shadow puppets, animation, paintings and light installations. “All these displays by artists new to the scene along with the music and jam sessions signify the playing area of children,” observes Sethi. Sharing details about the performances, Sethi, reveals, “Martial artist Aditya Roy from Goa will present a 50-minute programme ‘Gurudakshina’ and Sahil Vasudeva’s paino recital ‘Unrecital’ will take place with pictures being projected at his back. Animators Mehr Chatterjee and Aditya Dutta have collaborated on a work which very figurative and open.”
Harsh Nambiar’s untitled work
Marking the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between India and Russia, the festival will hold an exhibition “The Russian State and India – Imperial Encounters to Contemporary Collaboration. Curated by Dr.Hari Vasudevan, it will display archival photographs, maps, illustrations, copies of paintings, portraits and engravings.
The inaugural programme will feature Where the Streets are Fragrant with Sandal Paste... , New Ensemble Works in Bharatanatyam, choreographed by Justin McCarthy and presented by his troupe.
Other programmes include Carnatic violin duet by the Mysore Brothers, Mohan se Mahatma , a play marking the centenary of the Champaran Satyagraha, presented by Pierrot’s Troupe and directed by Sayeed Alam and Hindustani vocal music by Nandini Bedeker, a tribute to Kishori Amonkar by her senior-most shishya. Besides, there will also be a concert of Western classical music by the Cremona Quartet, a well-known string quartet from Italy; and folk dances and music from Cambodia, presented by Cambodian Artist Troupe led by Sok Sidony.
Focus on cities
The film festival this time will focus on cities. Entitled “A Cinematic Journey Through Cities”, it features ten award-winning films from Italy covering the period from 1950 to 2014 like Fort Apache Napoli , The Girl by the Lake and Quiet Bliss . Classics from Britain, China, France, Germany and India like Odd Man Out , Chungking Express , Wings of Desire , The Last Metro and Mahanagar will also be screened.
Specially curated meals will presented by Chefs Anumitra Ghosh-Dostidar, Puja Sahu, Alex Moser, Vipul Gupta, Geetika Goel, Vijay Thukral. The Embassy of Israel will offer a taste from their Ha Mitbach (kitchen), known for the freshness of ingredients and the exciting flavours of a typically ‘melting pot’ culture.
