Peers 2003

2003 saw the first PEERS Student Residency with graduates from Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi, J.J School of Art, Mumbai, Central University, Hyderabad, M.S University, Baroda and the Government College of Art, Chandigarh. PEERS 2003 was entirely self-funded with assistance from arts organizations such as the Sakshi gallery. Working on a very tight budget, the students lived and worked in New Delhi for 4 weeks.

A residency for students was the first of its kind in India. In an attempt to provide a new space for emerging new voices, it became a big success. So much so that KHOJ applied to, and received funding from the Indian Foundation for the Arts (IFA Bangalore) for the next 3 program

The recent decent into intellectual and political chaos of several leading art institutions of the country has opened up a debate regarding the relevance of institutionalized forms of Art Education today. Ironically while institutions may be in a state of turmoil, the young artists emerging from them have shown a rare degree of intellectual maturity and creative insight indicating that in the margins of the institutional space a bonding of peers has led to a ferment of ideas. These have become increasingly visible in recent years with institutions like J.J School of Art Mumbai, M.S University Baroda, Santiniketan, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi and Central University, Hyderabad among others throwing up some of the finest young talent of our times.

Peers 2003 organized by KHOJ at their Khirkee studio complex this monsoon, was a workshop for recent graduates of Art Colleges, aimed at providing a discursive space for emerging voices. Battling chaos of a different kind created by relentless rain, the five artists lived and worked together for six weeks, interacting and exchanging ideas to come up with some truly innovative work for the open studio day.

Particularly intriguing was M.Bidyut Singha's work. By planting a bed of seedlings on the studio floor surrounded by cow dung bricks and nurtured by an ingenious arrangement of mirrors to bring in the sun, his installation commented on the fragility of the environment and obliquely on human relations. A.P Bhuvanesh's roomful of red clay figurines marching in tandem to an inaudible beat took a wicked swipe at the jingoism that accompanies our ritualistic celebration of freedom, while Om Sooryaa's painting in a grid pattern captured the play of sunlight through the leaves of the tree in the court yard, reminiscent of the work done by Simon Callery at the first KHOJ workshop.

The technique of hand built terracotta in the hollow process, with the impression of fingers on the clay imparts a very different surface value to a sculptural object. Rakhi Peswani's sculpture a labour of love unfortunately failed to dry in the rain making her turn to substitute materials. Two legs shaped out of cloth wrapped over an armature protruding from the wall and painted with iron oxide, created the illusion of a figure plunging through artificially divided spaces leaving behind a remnant of a half vanished presence. Sheeba Sharma by creating a womb like dark enclosed space covered with carbon black, set up a site for the solemn enactment of the enigma of life, a vertiginous journey through a dark passage towards a new beginning.

Traversing a wide range of creative forms, the works made during the workshop resonated with a sense of responsibility of representation. Devoid of conservative and nostalgic attitudes promoted by Art Institutions, the conceptual procedures and ideological schemata used by the artists in residence to probe psychological depths had enormous wit and intelligence.

Shukla Sawant

Bhuvanesh Ariga

ONCE IN A YEAR I FEEL LEFT OUT

Aura of bravery, medals; in other words appreciation of heroism will be there as long as mankind survives on this earth. War is brutal but the same performers here take part in a beautiful piece of work where perfection plays a major role, very rarely do I find beauty in geometrical perfection.

My active participation in N.C.C. during my schooldays made me more attracted towards the armed forces, the discipline, neatness, uniformity, bravery; the synchronized movement to the music of the band always makes me to be a part of it.

Bloodshed, hatred, financial crisis; nobody is ready to accept war as beautiful, but the aura of heroism, bravery and patriotism is embraced by a person at least on a subconscious level. One day every year, when I watch a parade I feel anguish, misery it pushes me into a deep agony, its discipline, synchronized movement and sound of the band is killing!!

N.Bidyut Singha, (Bobby)

The essence of my work was limited to the time and space of venue provided, its hard to explain what was conceived then as it was designed for that particular environment.

Om Soorya

It was one of the best experiences of my life. I am grateful to KHOJ, especially Anita Dube who recommended my name, Pooja Sood who invited me for the residency and Sumedh Rajandran and Sukla Sawant who worked towards the smooth running of the residency for one and half months. And I would like to say thanks to the all KHOJ members and staffs that shared our problems and helped solve them in time.

When I decided to join the residency I was thinking about the Delhi heat, but after beginning the residency I never felt uncomfortable. Because the place provided for the studio space was very quiet and calm and spacious. I had everything I needed. I was observing the things which surrounded the house.

I clicked pictures of my friends. Pictures of trees, pictures of its shadows while I took the pictures I was unaware of the results and of my intentions. But I ordered thirty-two small wooden structures. I thought there would be enough time. Around forty-five days. Each day I could scribble something on it without any strain. But I couldn't scribble the things which were unknown or unfamiliar to me so what was I to do? The question raised itself before me. I started to stretch the canvas and started to prepare the surface. The surface, which I prepared, was white. Pure white. Then again I turned to another canvas. After a while I looked on the white surface. I was surprised. I looked again and again..

The shadows were black. The black shadows dispersed on white surfaces. Beyond that i didn't do any thing. But it happened as sudden revelation - an unbelievable truth. The shadows began to vaporise, to melt and finally it spread all over the ground. For a while it puzzled me Amazed me. I had seen a new phenomenon, a wonder. The shadows grew more deeply withered and sunlight crept in between and formed melted patterns of copper and silver, silver and gold. Soon i realized that all these belongs to my land and memories and my spirit. It was a new alchemy. An alchemy of resistance. Without a single drop of blood. a silent war for the new state of albinism.

Rakhi Paswani

˜Then it began to get light. She strained her eyes to catch a glimpse of the other shore. But all she could see was water. She turned and looked back. There, a few hundred feet away, was the shore of the green island.Could she possibly have swum the whole night in place? She was overcome with despair, and the moment she lost hope her arms and legs seemed to lose their strength, and the water felt unbearably cold. She closed her eyes and tried to keep swimming. She no longer hoped to reach the other side; all she could think of now was how she would die, and she wanted to die somewhere in the midst of the waters, removed from all contact, alone with the fish. She must have dozed off for a bit while her eyes were closed, because suddenly there was water in her lungs and she began coughing and choking, and in the middle of it all she heard children's' voices."

Milan Kundera

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Laburnums were failing to convey their yellow crispness in the chaotic summer of Delhi. Amidst power failures, water shortage, unruly traffic, yellow seemed only just too sharp for some peace.

For these big city anxieties, Blue was the color for the season. The turquoise stood mutely for the memory of the absent movements of a slow dance in a bus crowded with busy people. It represented the coolness of a mint lozenge in a throat parched by thirst.

We were ushered in a comfortably cramped space provided at South Extension for a month and a half long balancing act, each coping up with the island space of the other. Cooking, cleaning, eating, drinking, living and staying under one single shelter was a family act. But the pretence grew messy sometimes when undefined rules would be forgotten, or when one's territory would spill in the other. It was during these circumstances that the intentions of a residency would get highlighted.

The personal and the people spaces often collided forming new ties, new mergers, and often disrupting some of the past. Amidst the vast metropolitan blues, these petty droplets cast uncertain rain at the studios in Khirkee. Unconditionally surrounded by the bric-a-brac of the big city, the studios worked as a spacious refuge for each one of us in our own chosen ways. Sweat and irritation was inevitable in this July rain.

In this bittersweet pandemonium, an evening with chilled beer would often bring out associations of a long underwater swim in a deserted pool- quiet, cool, but softly suffocating. And life grew to a comfortable pace in the ways that were new to all of us. By this time, it was time to pack up; with self conscious goodbyes time ended abruptly right there.

Sheeba Sharma

My work at the Peers 2003 KHOJ Residency has been a continuation of my previuos work, which was based on the concept of human conscious, unconcsious and the id of mind were the id related to void.the space provided by the residency -i opened the black egg which for me was the inner of the iid where our child hood memories are along with the visual anactment.the room was painted black to create void as in womb.it was also a search for space by void.

The residency was a big step into the field. It helped me to make up on my professional and personal relations. It proved to be a kind of show window ,a peep into the field.