Sanskriti’s
international residencies are its global signature.Since
1993 it has hostedover 600 artists, poets, scholars, and
writers as well as some 300 craftspersons and cultural
activists (from across the world as well as South Asia)
to the Sanskriti Kendra, the Foundation’s sylvan
five-acrecampus located on the outskirts of New Delhi.To
all these creative people, the Kendra has offered a uniquely
serene and enabling environment in which to work, reflect
and interactwith each other, as well as their local peers.Its
internationally recognized programme of individual
residencies, offered in cooperation with
bodies such as UNESCO, Australia’s Asia-Link and
the Fulbright Fellowships Programme, has been particularly
appealing to visual artists wishing to broaden their own
practice through collaborative engagement withIndian craftspeople.Through
its extensive local network, Sanskriti has proactively
facilitated richinteractionsbetween visiting artists,
their Indian counterpartsas well as the local artisans.
Seeking to
build on these distinctive capacities, which it deploys
in many other disciplines as well, Sanskriti has diversifiedits
international residency offer.While the individual residenciescontinue,
Sanskriti has also embarked on new models of group
residencies.These three group options are
the following:
- Self-Proposed group creative
residencies
This residency model offers the Kendra’s unique
facilities (see details below) to international groups
that have designed a programme of their ownrequiring
immersion in Indian culture and the supportive environment
of the kind the campus and its staff provide.
For examplethe Chicago School of Art/ Wyoming School.
* Terms and Conditions
-
Collaborative group
creative residencies
These residencies will bring together groups of visual
artists or arts students, who will interact at the
Kendra with Indian craftspersons/artisans in different
disciplines(listed below) as appropriate. Workshops
specially designed for this purpose by Sanskriti’s
team, together with the overseas organizers,will enable
the visiting group to learn about particular local
crafts skills, exchange knowledge and knowhow with
the local practitioners and produce new work in the
collaborative mode. The Helpmann Academy in Adelaide,
for example, organizes residencies for groups of emerging
Australian artists who visit the Kendra for six-week
periods to interact with Indian artists and artisans.
* Terms and Conditions
-
Academic learning residencies
In 2014, Sanskriti will inaugurate a new model of
learning residencies for groups of arts scholars,
museum curators and docents, students, etc.which will
pertain to Indian art history, collecting and curating
of Indian art. The learning residencies will be based
on a concentrated programme of lectures and workshops
by eminent local scholars, curators and art critics.These
academic modules will be designed and coordinated
by the eminent curator and scholar Dr. Jyotindra Jain
and other local experts.They will also include site
visits and multiple interactions with the local arts
environment.
* Terms and Conditions
All four types of residency programmes
benefit directly from the Kendra’s unique facilities
and local outreach, consisting of the following:
- Sanskriti Museums:
Three thematic museums
are located within the Sanskriti cultural complex: the
Museum of Indian Terracotta, the Museum of Everyday
Art and the Museum of Indian Textiles.The collections
of these museums are representative of India’s
diverse tangible heritage. Each offers resident artists
an unparalleled visual resource. Besides the three museums,
Sanskriti maintains linkages with other museums, located
in Delhi. We could provide liaison for the artists in
residence.
- Library / Research Centre:
Sanskriti Kendra has a highly specialized reference
library housing around 2000 books on art, culture, museums,
Indian traditions of textiles, handicrafts and Indian
terracottas, etc. Visitors, researchers, artists and
students are welcome to use the material.
- Ceramics Centre: Since
2005, the campus has housed a state-of-the-art ceramics
production centre, equipped and managed in cooperation
with the esteemed Delhi Blue Pottery Trust.
- Enamel Centre: Sanskriti
has recently created a well-equipped enamel production
centre in cooperation with the Enamellist Society of
India that offers short training courses on enamelling
techniques.
- Site-specific Installation
spaces: Sanskriti Kendra provides open air
space for site-specific works of art and installations.
- Art Materials: Sanskriti
is able to identify and procure a wide range of traditional
materials, e.g. mineral pigments, natural dyes, textiles,
gold and silver leaf, shellac, handmade paper and clays.
- Popular culture: Since
the 19th century when mass reproduction or production
of printing technology emerged in India, there has been
an explosion of the visual image. Today the visual image
is mass-producedand mass-consumed through unique banners
and posters, photography and calendars, product labels,
TV and various forms of street culture. These images
have entered the world of contemporary art practice
already through avant-garde and post-modernist art practices.
Sanskriti has established connections
with archives of Indian popular culture for artists to
explore possibilities of their individual expressions
through these images.
- Collaborative work with traditional
craftspersons: Sanskriti maintains regular
links with traditional craftspersons and textile weavers,
dyers, printers, etc., as well as crafts workshops all
over India. Resident artists can draw freely on such
links in pursuing their own individual or group activities.
This could be done either by visiting craft-related
places anywhere in India through Sanskriti’s network
or by inviting traditional crafts practitioners to Sanskriti
Kendra itself.
- Network of local arts and culture
expertise: The local friends of Sanskriti include
many eminent as well as emerging scholars, thinkers,
curators, artists and craftspeople.The Kendra offers
regular talks on key aspects of Indian art and culture
to participants in all three types of residencies.
- Facilitating Indigenous Crafts
Collaboration: If any visiting artist desires
to do collaborative work in his/her field, Sanskriti
will be happy to establish/facilitate visits to such
crafts centres to different parts of India.
- Open Houses and other forums:
Artists can present their work in public forums, interact
in seminars, or conduct workshops with underprivileged
children. They can also share their own practice and
techniques with students at local art schools.
- Art gallery & Multipurpose
Hall (MPH): Sanskriti has two gallery spaces,
which can be used for various kinds of exhibitions,
as well as a new Multi-Purpose Hall.
Art gallery I : 900 sqft
Art Gallery II : 800 sqft
Multi Purpose Hall : 1000 sqft
For more information contact: residencies@sanskritifoundation.org
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