I KNOW WHAT YOU DID THIS SUMMER
An art project, Artdemic hosted by the Gujral Foundation, for the young emerging artistic voice, uses Instagram to convey creative vision during the difficult COVID times
Collecting all kinds of art, including illustrations, photographs, painting, drawings, animations, videos, even an image of a favourite quarantine culinary creation, Artdemic is a project being hosted by the Gujral Foundation. The intention is to view what young artistic and creative folks have created during the destressing COVID 19 situation. With the brutal second wave that has brought with it death and the necessity for yet another lockdown. The Gujral Foundation Group is headed by Feroze Gujral, the Co-Founder and Director of The Gujral Foundation, who are interested in seeing how creators are expressing themselves during these times. There are no rules or guidelines, except that the work has to be born out of COVID. The project began in May on the 24th and Artdemic will be rewarding a cash prize of INR 10,000 on a weekly basis to their favourite submission.
Feroze Gujral is a philanthropist, art aficionado, patron, businesswoman, cultural commentator, columnist and media personality. This is her effort to reach out to the young artists. She is the Co-Founder and Director of The Gujral Foundation and the Founder Director of Outset India; the Indian chapter of Outset Contemporary Art Fund.
The work that caught one’s attention is of a Bengali couple, sitting at home in retirement bliss listening to music. There is a bittersweetness to the composition, because they are overweight and actually quite vulnerable should they get infected with the virus. “I was born and brought up in West Bengal in India where men wear dhoti and Punjabi and women wear the typical saree. This influences my inner self and reflects in my work of art and my creation. I am also enriched with the art of Indian miniature painting and folk art of Bengal,” writes Apurba karati.
“In my paintings the theme centers upon a couple. It represents male and female who spared the major part in life for establishing themselves. In retirement, it is impossible for them to do anything with their obese bodies, so their oppressed aspirants are encircled by dream. It has constituted a virtual world of their own that is entirely not artificial but is constituted within the core of mind. The experience I had to visualize and feel very close to was from the harsh realities that are from my parents,” writes the artist.
Another artist, Kanesh Thabendran is from Srilanka, and he presents a very interesting and politically loaded photo-collage, of the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. In Thabendran’s composition, Christ and the disciples are in absentia, where only the stark white cut-out shadows of their forms remain. Meanwhile, in the foreground of the composition the artist has photoshopped in contemporary images of nurses and doctors dressed in PPT suits cleaning the leftover food and the floor of medical waste. It encapsulates our tragic times with a dark poetry that is both arresting and poignant in the same breath. “My work represents the Influence of the past and present. I Appropriate the early work by doing cutting and collage works,” writes Thabendran.
Through a hyper-real work titled ‘Cultural Landscape Wounding’, artist Amar Limboo from Assam indicates the ongoing unrest in his homeland. “I am trying to represent the ongoing violence which is being inflicted over the land, devastating it’s natural and cultural habitat,” writes Limboo. The metaphor he chooses is a torn and burnt scarf (Gamosa) worn by regular Assamese men. “Assam is known for its rich natural habitat and serene landscape, but due to human generated violence, the beauty is wounded with scarring all over. In this work, I have used Gamosa, which appears as a symbol of Assamese culture, as well can be read as a metaphor of the land. Here the Gamosa can also be seen as a representation of the indigenous people and the land, and the burned, tattered areas are expressions of trauma and violence inflicted over the place,” writes the artist who is pursuing his final year of BFA, in the department of Painting from Government College of Art & Craft, Calcutta. As an art practitioner, he intends to engage with a diverse range of material practices as well as a newer curatorial approach. His current practice explores both the idea of self and the society at large.
Artist Nehal Verma focuses on the sense of increasing self-doubt after years of dealing with self-issues growing in a sexist, misogynist world. “All of that with a punch of solitude in this unpredictable pandemic results in existential crisis. But in-spite of all of this we are fighting with ourselves to stand with Pride,” writes Verma. The title of the work is inspired by Kishwar Naheed‘s poetry. Nehal is a student from Jaipur currently pursuing her MVA from Rajasthan University.
One may also delve into Arshi Sayed’s work that looks at the ‘Intravenous’, and the ‘intramuscular’ as an exploration of the self that exists within the visible self. Or Shilpi Nath Dey’s take on Migration through the metaphor of birds or ants in her minimalist work Latibule or hiding place.
Additionally, The Gujral Foundation has shared the names of the winners of the first week and the second week of the competition. Isha Itwala and Vivek Das for the first week and Amar Limboo and Chathuri Nissansala for the second week. As we can see artistic expression begins young, and is often best in times of duress.
Email your submission in JPEG or PNG format to hello@artdemic.in
Artdemic will be rewarding a cash prize of Rs 10,000 weekly for their favourite submission. The weekly awards will be given out until the 18th of August.
Text by Georgina Maddox
Image Courtesy: Participating artists and Artdemic project
Find more about Artdemic and Artists:
https://gujralfoundation.org/artdemic/
