Five visual artists from India spoke about their experiences at bangaloREsidency:flashback, held recently at the Goethe Institut, Max Mueller Bhavan. Four art spaces in Germany hosted their stay and provided each artist the space to create art work.
Sandeep TK, who worked in Germany on the concept of what it means to be single in the urban context, says, “I don’t always like being among people, and I always thought that I’m not entertaining enough or I don’t have enough friends but after coming back from Germany that perception has changed. I realised you can be really comfortable with yourself.” It’s essential to connect with our inner self and being comfortable in our own skin. This is what Sandeep learned through his art work at his residency in Germany.
Indu Antony, a visual artist, whose project was on Carl Jung’s theory of personal unconscious memories and how this can be ‘intertwined with a public language’, spoke about repressed memories, her mother and the time she was put in jail soon after landing in Germany (she was mistaken for an immigrant) and how efficiently she utilised that time to perform her art work.
She did something completely different during her stay in Berlin, her main focus being unconscious memories which were projected in each one of her art works. “I took everything in” said Indu as she explained how important it was for her to find herself in a different atmosphere that offered her freedom and a sense of being. “I went around sticking these posters in Berlin that said have chai with me and also posted on social media; I made chai for those who showed up, and shared a memory that came to them after many years.”
Kunhikuttan Narayana played flute at the opening of the event, which set the mood for the evening. His work Understanding Misunderstanding projected his experience through five different kinds of visual art.
Another stunning visual art was Sridhar Gangolli’s Consumable Space. He presented his artwork and his vision “one should not consume more than he should”, by trapping himself in a billboard placed on a ground with the help of net tied at the edges. His work of art was a comment on the greed of a human being who’s truly satisfied.
“Sridhar, my daughter and I were the first ones to leave for Germany,” said Suresh Kumar, who worked with public spaces. While in Germany, he was largely inspired by loud music played at bars, the liveliness of people and spaces around him. “I wanted to do something which was created inside but was exposed from outside” said Suresh. He created a window-like display to present his piece. Another interesting fact was that Suresh cooked lemon rice for a German entrepreneur who had liked the dish so much that he included it in his recently-launched cookbook.
Though all of them had varied experiences, one common thread that ran through their work was self-awareness