THE INDIA-INDIA RESIDENCY -
1st July to the 30th September 2008
a Bengaluru Arist Residency Project (bar1)
supported by India Foundation for the Arts (IFA)
 
The Guests at the India-India Residency 2008
 
Six weeks stay: batch 1 (1.7. 08 - 15. 8. 08)
Chandrakala M.N., Mysore, visual artist (B.A. CAVA; currently pursuing her studies in Mysore) Atul Mahajan, Baroda, visual artist (M.A., Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda) Rahee Dahake, writer, poet, translator, teacher; Mumbai and Brussels (M. Phil. J.N. University New Delhi)

Six weeks stay: batch 2 (16.8. 08 – 30. 9. 08) 
Banita Bhau, Jammu, visual artist, B.A., Institute of Music & Fine Arts in Jammu, currently pursuing her studies in Santiniketan Malvika Mankotia, Mhow, M. P., visual artist (M.A., Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University,Baroda) Nilanjan Bhattacharya, Calcutta, author of films with documentary elements, initiator of an ongoing media project about cultural archiving in Calcutta

Three month stay (1. 7. 08 - 30. 9. 08)
Shreyas K. Karle, Mumbai, visual artist (M.A. 2008, Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda) Shreyas Karle’s documentation, was a lucky find for us. His way of working is playfully process - oriented and fitted straight into what we had in mind. We invited him for 3 months and he became the link between the first and the second batch and between the guests and the organizers. He designed all the residency- opening invites, which became artistic statements in themselves. Shreyas’ approach, both determined but undemanding, never implied that solutions do not matter. But Shreyas was not defensive about them, allowing that impediments were a part of what was going on. 

‘bengaluruwatching’, the final version of Shreyas’ (or Kali Babu’s) Bangalore - work (a city narrative.. an insight into the surveillance heads of the city) has now been bought by a museum in Amsterdam after he had exhibited it in a group-show there, organized by Krishnamachari Bose. 

What is the India-India Residency 2008? 
Since its beginnings, bar1 has emphasised the importance of an artist exchange within India, since large distances separate the largely urban centres where artists work and no long-distance exchange of views can match the intensity of a personal experience of the arts scene and the cultural life of a city. 

As a pilot project in this direction, worked out together with IFA, bar1 organised the India-India Residency from July to September 2008. The Residency hosted 7 artists, of which 6 were each resident for 6 weeks and one for 3 months. 

A nation-wide call went out inviting applications from artists working in all imaginable traditional as well as unconventional fields of art, with all imaginable media, and addressing any of the human senses. We got 44 applications. This indicated how vital is the need for such India-India exchange programmes, and how important it will be that similar initiatives network in the future, to prepare the ground to satisfy this demand. 

Our concept stressed the interdisciplinary interactions of the guests among themselves, with Bengaluru and with its arts scene, rather than the production of individual work. We invited the artist - guests to see themselves as a temporary collective - like a temporary community of migrant workers in a city or of astronauts on the moon. 

Also, despite the emphasis on interaction, the intention was never to control or streamline the outcomes of this residency. We believe in artistic freedom. People should do what they believe they are best at doing.  

Final exhibition

Why an exhibition in an old bungalow? 
Bangalore has a vibrant, interesting arts scene. It lacks the infrastructure this scene deserves. There are not enough serious galleries with an own signature, who are taking risks, not enough transparently functioning venues for the display of art, and not enough cooperation between the venues that do exist.
 
But a time of change offers a lot of opportunities. There is increased interest nationally and internationally in the Indian art scene, and an opportunity, therefore, for artists to take the initiative themselves, as the events at Suresh Jayaram’s 1 Shanti Road prove. Everyone, including the commercial institutions for art, will profit from this.

As the whole residency was planned to be something unusual, where habits would get tested, the final exhibition took place in an old bungalow and not in a usual exhibition venue. The bungalow was somehow a supplementary important actor, helping to visualise the reality of contemporary Bangalore. As a special guest of bar1 and as an artist from Bangalore we invited Uma Shankar to take part in this exhibition. Uma Shankar is an artist turned rickshaw driver, whose services we have been employing sometimes since 2003, when during the Khoj workshop he got acquainted with art. He has been working seriously since then, making drawings and more recently videos with his mobile phone. His participation here was meant to be a preview for a later solo - show.   

The India-India Residency 2008 has the charm of something done for the first time, and this may be hard to repeat. 

We have also been supported by NCBS, donated us used computer parts

Gold Enterprises: Use of venue for final exhibition at #5, Ahmed Sait Road, Frazer Town for 15 days and electricity charges.