Thaindian News

By Madhusree Chatterjee
New Delhi, April 7 (IANS) Public art, which tries to garner community involvement, will take a look at the capital’s ecological and ethnic mix in a unique project featuring artists from India and three each from Germany, Japan and the US.

“In Context: Public. Art. Ecology” will be held from April 8-16 by Khoj studios in south Delhi across different venues like Select City Walk mall and 20 Barakhamba Road.

“Public art projects are important in a country like India where art can help people think differently. Interactive art transcends language barriers and visual aesthetics - and often blurs the line between art and activism,” Pooja Sood, director of Khoj, told IANS.

“For this residency we had received 60 applications and shortlisted six. The projects are funky because they cull from popular kitsch art and the capital’s living environment.

“For example, Sylvia Winkler and Stephan Koeperl have improvised Delhi’s cycle rickshaws to reconnect it to riders. Those riding the rickshaw can take part in the movement of the machine by pedalling from their seats in the rear. The rickshaws are powered by solar panels,” Sood said.

Sood said the artists are also mapping the stretch between Khirki village - where the Khoj headquarters are located - and the mall.

“The stretch can be described as the microcosm of India with a village - symbolising the grassroots - the road - a bridge and the mall - an edifice of aspiration,” Sood said.

The project, supported by the Norwegian embassy, will elicit community participation in art through installations, interactive video projects, aesthetic landscaping and urban restructuring.

It will feature a contemporary sculpture and a public intervention work at the Pushp Vihar Monday Market by Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, both of whom will anchor the show, a spokesperson for Khoj said. It will also include works by Aastha Chauhan, video works by Sheba Chhachhi, Gigi Scaria and Ravi Agarwal.

Andrea Polli and Chuck Varga’s “Hello, Weather!” and “Breather” respectively are a series of installation maps that try to de-mystify the collection and use weather data by bringing artists, technologists and ecologists together around citizens’ weather stations.

This project investigates cooperative media related to climate observation and science - and builds on the existing international phenomenon of personal weather.

“Hello, Weather!” currently has four professional weather stations in operation - two in New York City, one in Los Angeles and one in Zurich.

The project will be displayed at Khoj studios.

Sylvia Winkler and Stephan Koeperl’s “Passenger Propelled Rickshaw”, is a project that highlights the fact that self-powered vehicles are going to play a major role for short-distance transport in the future.

Since 2002, Khoj has been conducting a series of residency projects to forge linkages between people and aesthetics to espouse issues like environment, land rights, economics, urban planning and people’s movements.