It’s a convergence of 10 artists from five countries that will probably go down in the history of new age India. Inspired by the historicity of Hampi, a Unesco World Heritage site, and to give industrial scrap metal a creative form, Sangita Jindal and Amit Kumar Jain joined hands and invited artists from five countries at Vijayanagara to create art works to tap into untold and unseen stories of the Vijayanagara kingdoms.
Sangita Jindal, chairperson, JSW Foundation, says, “Our idea of Abhisaran, a three-week long residency programme, was to unite the old and the new, to create art that recognises the reality of today and the beauty of a time gone by. Our muse is a well-planned industrial township and an inspiring historical cultural world heritage site. We draw inspiration from two architectural wonders standing tall together contrasting and complimenting each other.”
Art has a unique way of binding cultures and the duo is creating a junction where artists converge to create works in a variety of medium that include paintings, sculptural installations, video and sound. Explaining how the idea was born, curator Amit explains, “Sangita contacted me after reading about the Colombo Art Biennale which I had curated in February 2014. She proposed that the JSW Foundation organised a residency in Vijayanagar after an initial discussion of a ‘mishran’’ where artists from South Asia could come together on a common platform.”
Sangita and Amit chose the artists keeping in mind their ability to react to found objects and inclination towards site specificity. “Though the first point of contact for the artists is the scrap available in the steel plant, they have been given a free hand in choosing their medium. Thus, artists are working withcloth, Banjara embroidery, mural, video, calligraphy and land art too.
“Abhisaran is the first residency that I have worked on and judging the response of the artists, we hope that it will become an important South Asian residency,” says Amit. The artists stationed at the residency include Baptist Coelho (India), Chinthaka Thenuwara (Sri Lanka), Mahbubur Rahman (Bangladesh), Mrugen Rathod (India), Muzummil Ruheel (Pakistan), Pala Pothupitiya (Sri Lanka), Preksha Tater (India), Seema Nusrat (Pakistan), Sanjeev Mahajan (Nepal) and Sheelasha Rajbhandhari (Nepal).
