International Art Residency in India

International Art Residency in India

The Beauty of Who I Am

by Stefan Eicher

Art for Change, a New Delhi, India, based arts organization with a vision to see art shape society with beauty and truth was running its 5th annual International Artist Residency in November 2017. The residency started with a simple assignment: make a portrait with and about a young girl. Ten carefully-selected yet nervous artists-in-residence teamed up with five very shy underprivileged girls. But by the end of the day something magical had happened. The girls had come delightfully alive and the artists had made a deep connection with each of them.

It was only the next day that the artists-in-residence were told the girls they had worked with were all survivors of sexual assault. Counsel to Secure Justice (CSJ), with whom Art for Change partnered for this residency, is working closely with each of the five girls to secure effective criminal and restorative justice. That following day, a CSJ social worker shared the girls’ five different stories. These ranged from incest to the experience of one girl getting kidnapped by a criminal gang, repeatedly raped over a period of a week, imprisoned in a cellar next to dead bodies, taken outside and shot, and then thrown into a well. And yet she survived—and not having been told which story belonged to which girl, for the vibrant resilience and irrepressible spirit of each of them, we couldn’t have figured it out!

Yet it was that opening to the residency, reconciling the knowledge of the second day with the lives of the first day, that launched the artists into three weeks of discussion and creativity around the theme: ‘The Beauty of Who I am.’ Rather than responding directly to the issue of child sexual abuse our and CSJ’s aim was for the artist and their art to ask the bigger questions: What is justice? What is restoration? What is beauty? What is the value of a human life? Ultimately, what does it mean to be human?

Art for Change has been running artist residencies for the last 10 years, including the annual International Artist Residency designed for artists from around the world to engage with questions of human dignity in a cross-cultural Indian setting. The international residency lasts 2 – 3 weeks and typically has up to 6 international artists working alongside 6 Indian artists. Each residency is designed around a theme, topic or framework as a response to a particular social issue yet seeks to ask bigger questions about human value, dignity and life in general. In the past we have gone into Asia’s largest tuberculosis hospital to meet patients and paint a human portrait of the disease, spent time with rag-picking families on one of New Delhi’s Garbage Mountains to explore issues of marginalization, consumerism and urban growth, or simply taken the topic ‘Small’ and in both a literal and metaphorical exploration challenged viewers to think from a different perspective. 

Our international residencies aim to create collaborative & supportive cross-cultural interactions that result in new learning for all involved as well as long-term friendships. At the end of each

residency the art produced is shared with the public through a formal exhibition, which sometimes includes performance art pieces or interactive installation work taken to the streets.

Over the next three weeks of the ‘Beauty of who I am’ residency, through a process of working individually in a large common studio space and reflecting collectively during daily ‘chai-time’ discussions, the artists produced a moving range of paintings, sculptures, photos, installations, and performances.

One artist created a walk-in installation she called Concealment, a beautiful mosaic of brand new cloth-scraps discarded by a local tailor which she collected, sowed together, and hung in a corner. In addition to the power of the symbolism, as a viewer the protective semi-transparent barrier hid you, while allowing you to quietly observe the rest of the room. Another artist, drawing on Indian mythology, created an interactive board game that played with the idea of ‘safety’ as a critique of patriarchy and a parody of society’s responses to sexual assault. Other works dealt with forgiveness, trust, resilience, inner-vs-outer beauty, and more. One artist wrestled from the beginning with the idea of beauty itself, questioning the assumption that every human being is inherently valuable, particularly when faced with the evil of the aggressor. He ended up making an installation projecting a digital clock through an acrylic curtain along with the poet Kabir’s words “The river that flows in you, flows through me too.” He himself sat behind it, completely hidden under a black cover except for one hole revealing his tapping finger. The piece captured a sense of being caught in time, stuck in that space between hope and hopelessness. His tapping finger, as he explained it, was both his waiting and his complicity in not doing anything.

The Residency ended with a well-attended public exhibition. But a few hours prior to that we held a special private viewing exclusively for the five girls. The artists proudly gave them a tour of a body of work that had been inspired by them, and in some cases made for them as the primary audience. One installation was completed only when the artist gave the girls hammers to break open clay pots revealed to be full of sweets, each with a flower at its center, all of which they were to take home—an act of symbolic, prophetic, cathartic reversal of past injustice. Not only had our lives been deeply touched by those of the girls but, as the CSJ social workers shared afterwards, they too had been felt honored.

Art for Change is running its next annual International Residency November 18 – December 2, 2018 on the topic of ‘Personhood.’ How does the simple idea of being authentically ourselves relate to how we understand ourselves, our practice, and our context in a world that grows ever more complicated?  If you are an artist and interested in participating, please contact us at www.artforchange.space.

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The Art for Change Foundation is excited to announce this year's International Artist Residency 2018. The artist residency is an annual 2-week international residency run by the Art for Change Foundation, a New Delhi based arts organisation with a vision to see art shape society with beauty and truth. The residency is designed for you to engage with questions of human dignity in a cross-cultural setting, working alongside a community of talented and diverse fellow artists. Dates: November 18 - December 2, 2018; Place: New Delhi, India; Theme: Personhood; Deadline for applications: May 15, 2018. Apply by email, with CV, Artist Bio, and six of your strongest works to date. https://artforchange.space; www.fb.com/ArtforChange

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