Several artists will convert Khoj Studios premises into a huge canvas to create unique on-site installations that will define humans’ engagement with spaces around them
Can art activate a building and stimulate a multi-sensory experience between the artwork and the structural form it occupiesIJ At Khoj Studios, nine artists have achieved in doing just that through an exhibition of on-site, multi-media works that explore light, colour, shape, size and unusual material within the white shell of the Khoj building.
Titled Activating Space: A Sculptural Enquiry, the exhibition, including drawings, video, mixed media installation, mirrors, metal and even shadows, will be held at Khoj Studios from April 23 to May 15. Participating artists are Gagan Singh, lleah Smith and James Gatt, Pooja Iranna, Priyamwada Singh, Samrudh Dixit, Sanket Jadia, Shaily Gupta and Henri Fanthome, Sikan Kumar Panda and Teja Gavankar.
Says Promona Sengupta, programme manager at Khoj, “Activating Space, at the core, is interested in the awakening of Khoj as a physical architectural site. Since its refurbishment in 2013, the exterior of the Khoj building, its courtyard, terrace as well as various nooks and crannies have the potential to be explored by artists. The show invites the most unusual, unique and bizarre materials to permeate the exterior space and explore realms which otherwise can go by unnoticed. No interior studio or project space will be used in the installation of this exhibition.”
Khoj has chosen seven individual artists and two art collectives to use its pre-existing architecture/facade to sculpturally investigate the form and the site, to ignite a sense of discovery and wonder and to find an interesting dialogue between the two forms. Elements of exploration, disguise, and emphasis are all equally at play as artists are encouraged to explore the divisions of subtly and strength and harmony and contrast in the work and the building.
Activating Space is also a unique new programme that departs from the specific, thematic orientation of most of the other residencies and exhibitions organised by Khoj. It invites sculptors, architects, visual artists and other creative practitioners to engage with Khoj within the loose and accommodative rubric of site-specificity.
“I am interested in how being in a site creates a certain impact on your mind and also how the memory bank, or ‘the sense of visualisation’ responds to a place. There is a trigger in the sense of imagination and dwelling in possible/impossible thinking. I would like to use the external spaces to create drawings, which could become interventions or lead to a new sense of perception of the same place,” says artist Gagan Singh. He is a graduate in Fine Arts from University of the Creative Arts, UK. His practice involves researching in drawing through sketchbooks, animation, installation and writing.
lleah Smith and James Gatt are part of the art collective Dandelion which is an artist collective based in Sydney, Australia. They say about their work Oasis, “life in India is undeniably chaotic, a land of millions, of the unexpected and of commotion, of loud noises, interesting smells, textured terrains and bargaining power. So, what does it mean to stop amongst the chaos and the communal and to escape even momentarily into a solo space for contemplation, personal reflection and silenceIJ Rooftops in India offer this retreat; they are a space set apart from the people and the roads, the markets and the city, which offer a self-induced silence. Oasis is about providing a space for the viewer to sit silently with their thoughts and to simply be, even if only momentarily. Colour, texture and unusual materialities become a gateway for this retreat, offering an experiential interaction with invisible space and visible architecture,” says the artist duo.
Pooja Iranna has been working on the subject of architectural spaces for decades and is known not only for her watercolours, staple pin sculptures and photographical work but also videos. She says about her work Swaas, “The video is a single-channel video which shows a single building breathing which takes our attention towards the spaces we create and then live in. These are alive and breathing just like us. They might be standing mute for some but they are very much there, stable and have a life as they carry our vibrations, which we are usually ignorant of. The video would be shown in an enclosed space at Khoj with the sound of deep breath echoing around. This is to activate the whole building as such.”
Priyamwada Singh has a work titled Time Traces — A Sensory Experiential Trace of Khoj in/through Time. She says, “The architecture of Khoj, in its neutrality, allows for all kinds of interesting provocations. Our attempt is to engage with the subtle façade of the building and propose a transient unique identity at its entrance. We propose to create an experience of the history of Khoj and the day-to-day interaction of the people and community the institution caters to.
Our enquiry starts as a physical trace of the façade’s metal exoskeleton and its projection on the enclosing exterior walls. We mark points to trace the entrance void created by the metal exoskeleton. These points are woven together with brightly colored nylon strings such that the perceived cuboidal space is simultaneously defined and disrupted. This physical trace at the entrance void becomes a repository for attaching new-found materials such as metal tubes, OHP sheets et al, bought and gathered from the Khirki village.
The final physical findings get notated to trace the history of Khoj; as people move through and interact with the sculpture they are also encouraged to leave their traces (write/notate) on the hanging pieces. The hanging pieces act like a large-scale wind chimes; the play of light and shadow with the strings and the colourful OHP sheets create an ephemeral kaleidoscopic effect in the space, akin to the stained glass lit up interiors of churches and old havelis. The final sculpture becomes an interactive sensory experience of the history and day- to-day interactions of Khoj with its community.”