Serendipity Arts Residency Showcase presents range of creative multimedia practices

New Delhi, Aug 16 (PTI) For the five young artists and one writer at the Serendipity Arts Residency Open Studio, the world turned into their personal oyster as they interpreted the environs around them during the three-month stay at a shared space in the national capital.

A precursor to the grand show at Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa in December, the Open Studio here offers a glimpse of the innovative and thought-provoking practices of the six residents.

Serendipity Arts Foundation’s annual program offers creative minds the space and resources to develop their practice, work on new projects, and interact with the broader art community in the capital.

While the work of neurodivergent queer artist Sanghamitra Deb reflects her personal stories and lived experiences of trauma through her work, Urna Sinha’s exploration focuses on the concept of territory in a constantly shifting world, examining the body's movement through ephemeral terrains.

Deb’s work is both confined into a room fashioned like a studio apartment and spills out into the world through a digital film that runs on the wall.

In “that which is left behind after exorcisms”, Deb presents a multimedia studio installation and a ritual performance called “rupantaran” using text, audio, video, painting, mud, and drag.

Her paintings are made from menstrual blood, hair, acrylic and fabric paint, ink, coffee, and sequins on handmade paper.

“As a queer person you sort of accumulate a lot of trauma just by existing because you are not accepted. That leaves a lot of violence on the body. So I started using my blood which is something I consider to be very pure because it came from me, it’s not coming from violence. It’s a beautiful thing that gives me life. So I felt this connection with the material very emotionally. Then I started using it to make visible the violence that remains invisible on my skin,” Deb told PTI.

Sinha’s work incorporates gouache on archival paper, inkjet prints, an artist book, gouache in silk, overhead projections, and video installations.

By drawing and redrawing burial sites, the 28-year-old has created a territory that navigates between memory, loss, and the paradoxes of refuge and survival.

“I try to see burial grounds as a sight that kind of informs us about our presence from a bureaucratic point of view, from a forensic point of view, to a place that kind of speaks about remembrance and reverence,” Sinha said.

Writer-in-residence Saloni Jaiwal documented the three-month cohabitation with the five artists in the context of space, presence and mobility in a hyper-digital, networked world.

Concluding her residency in the form of a website, Jaiwal has reflected on the concept of nearness and distance, proposing a critique of contemporary image cultures and their impact on the perception of reality.

Other artists at the residency include Adheep Das, Purnendra Kumar Meshram and Sheshadev Sagria.

While Das explores the concept of borrowing and transforming elements over time through his work that features 3D spaces, described as "defaced versions of reality" and traditional charcoal animations, Sagria’s project examines the act of turning soil into clods and the sensorial and epistemological worlds unearthed by the figure of the earthworm as he questions knowledge systems and conventional methods of validation.

Meshram's "Life-less-Life" blends dance-movement and video projection to explore themes of in-betweenness and identity. Through his performance, Meshram examines an evolving sense of home across the experiences of living in his village Patan, and various major cities in India.

Now in its seventh edition, the Serendipity Arts Residency is a three-month program based in New Delhi, dedicated to supporting emerging artists across various disciplines, including visual arts, lens-based and new media practices, text, sound, performance, and other innovative media.

The open studio will come to an end on August 23. PTI MAH MAH BK BK