LAVANYA MANI

Vadodara

Born 1977 in Hyderabad

The artist weaves tales, literally. Lavanya Mani explores the world of textiles through traditions and techniques of textile painting, printing and embroidery in the country. Through her art, Mani makes a tapestry of history, experiences and craftsmanship. She is interested in the world of textiles and text like ‘spin a yarn’, and ‘to fabricate.’ Her artworks are multi-layered and have been exhibited around the country.

Travellers Tales – Blueprints

Cotton fabric with natural dyes and cyanotype.

Aspinwall

They hang like the sails of a ship, catching wind in careless abandon. The bold symbols and the earthy colors of the natural dyes capture your eye. Through the traditional technique of ‘Kalamkari,’ she depicts the role of textiles in the colonialism of India. According to her, Kalamkari was so popular in Europe in the 17th century that French and British governments banned it. The blue color of the cyanotype, a photographic medium when applied to cloth and exposed to light represents the ocean and Indigo- a dye that changed history. The painting also includes texts from travelers in those days.

PARVATHI NAYAR

Chennai

Born 1964 in Delhi

Parvathi Nayar uses the power of black and white to make abstract portraits of the world. She plays with scale and perspective to create images of the world from microscopes and satellite cameras. It all starts with a point, according to her, that gives rise to the world of art.

The Fluidity of Horizons

Drawings on wooden panels

Aspinwall hanging

The astrolabe- a device used years ago by astronomers and navigators to mark the time and position of celestial bodies. The instrument is depicted as the base of the drawing with maps and geographical reference to the intricate layouts of cells merged. Maps of the world and our lives intertwined with references to the Malabar Coast and its rich trade history. A large peppercorn looms over a turbulent Arabian Sea. Intricate pathways of subatomic particles. Parvathi Nayar asks you to look at the world from different perspectives with various references.

NAVJOT ALTAF

Mumbai

Born 1949 in Meerut

Her work with communities and indigenous artists has garnered a lot of attention. Her pieces are interactive and seek to include art within the fabric of community life. An early encounter with Marxism led to her interest in feminism and has been a part of shaping the artist’s perceptions and work.

Mary Wants to Read a Book

Wood, paper, audio and video

Aspinwall

A tall library shelf with a rainbow of books. More than 2,000 books with recycled paper, each with a text from the artist’s research signify the literacy of the state and its recent developments. The books and the shelf also are the 3D documentation of the continental temperature rise over the last 2000 years. The work creates a conversation between development and environmental changes. It implores you to look at progress and our experiences that could result in ecological disasters. The multiple significances of the various elements are interesting and during the last two weeks of the Biennale, one can take away the books.

MONA HATOUM

Germany and UK

Born 1952 in Lebanon

Objects acquire different identities in the hands of Mona Hatoum. She turns mundane objects into pieces that question identities, references, and multiple meanings. The experiences she creates are uncanny and rather poetic.

Undercurrent

Light bulbs and cables

Aspinwall

A square mat woven of cables unravel outwards to bloom into light bulbs. The meandering lines of the cables never touch away from the rigid source they arise from. The light of the bulbs fluctuate a warm yellow, either a sign of warning or the rhythm of breathing. They never stop, just like the world that ebbs and flows with danger and happiness. The pulse of the light will hold you entranced as people swarm about looking at the various exhibits.

HAMRA ABBAS

Pakistan and the USA

Born 1976 in Kuwait

Hamra Abbas works extensively with photography, performance and multimedia art. She is known for her pieces that re-address iconic images and other symbols of historical, religious, and cultural importance.

Kaaba Pop-ups

Printed paper

CSI Bungalow

Rows of origami are what you notice as you walk into the dimly lit room at CSI Bungalow. The 24 handmade paper sculptures in various shades of blue are folded into intricate Islamic stalactite patterns. Enclosed in acrylic boxes, the paper folds into a three dimension cube in the center. This is modeled on the ‘Kaaba’, the cuboid structure in the center of the mosque in Mecca. The ‘Kaaba’ is an integral part of the faith and is a recurring image in Muslim homes. The fragile nature of paper contrasts the monument and its significance. It also serves as the representation of nature, faith, sky and the seas. A modern take on the traditional symbol.

SUMAKSHI SINGH

New Delhi

Born 1980 in New Delhi

The world is an illusion. Sumakshi Singh is known for her interactive installations that allow the viewer to inhabit and alter the moment with their involvement. Her constant conversations with the external and internal serve as a locus and reference to space, time, culture, history and ourselves.

In, Between the Pages

Multimedia installation

Pepper House

The pages of a book have moving images of everyday things projected onto it. Behind lays a maze of hanging paper scrolls. You are surrounded by familiar images of birds, animals, coconut trees and the like. The images cross planes and boundaries while you walk among them. The cosmology of Surya Siddantha; a Sanskrit text on astronomy, Hortus Malabaricus; a 17th-century study of Kerala’s flora and the landing of Vasco da Gama form the narratives. At another end, a projection ties the maze together where the viewers find themselves as part of the image and the telling of the story.

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“I don’t define art. If you define it you kill it. If I had to say it then I wouldn’t be making it.”

A vantage point is not just a physical entity. Sumakshi Singh’s explorations into perspective have made her an internationally recognized contemporary artist. Born and brought up in Delhi, Sumakshi was trained in painting at M S University, Baroda. Since then she has travelled all over the world working and exhibiting.

She creates site specific installations which prod the existence of time, understanding, fist interpretations and self-reflection. Drawing from her own experiences, the artist uses mix media to draw you into the artwork and leave you with transcending thoughts.

Photos: Jinson Abraham

What does the Biennale mean to you?

What you see here is a lot of goodwill coming together. Often in the art world and at art fairs what you sense is a kind of competiveness and galleries favoring their artists. Here art is not for sale and is not a commodity.

Artists and curators are all stepping in to offer their own private funds and energy. A community is coming together to make this happen which is a really positive thing for the art fraternity. What I’m enjoying about the Biennale is that it is all about ideas and pushing your practice, along with pushing the context of everybody’s practice.

What has been your experience so far?

It is very inspiring to be here. A large part of it is due to the fact that the curator Jitish Kallat has individually worked with the artists on their concepts and ideas. He has asked us to work on our ideas and not take short cuts. We are inspired to go all out. You don’t really see that in many places in the art world. This is not market driven and it is really about ideas and having a dialogue. This is an incredible platform for people to come and really expand their practice and tap into inspiration.

How do people interpret your work?

I make art for self-discovery. I ask the artwork what it wants to become and then onwards it’s a strange little dance. I feel uncomfortable when I work. I am a person who wants to be in control. I don’t know what it is going to become, but learning to trust is very soothing. Very often people understand exactly what I am hoping for and beyond. When somebody comes back and tells me what they saw, suddenly there is a bubble of joy inside due to a realization that what they saw is what I unconsciously meant it to be. Obviously, something is coming through the work that is not from your brain or your conscious intent, but it is like ‘you’ are just seeping through your work.

For some people, my art is very much like a mark of our generation where we are in multiple places at the same time. Where are you really? How do you locate yourself? Our generation deals with this all the time with Skype, Facebook and SMS. Is it where your physical body is placed, where your attention is or a meeting online? There is this multiplicity now and space is collapsing in a way. If two hundred years ago. You tell someone that you could talk to another without being in the same room, they would not believe you. Other thing that people tell me is that it is like a space -time hiccup.

Your vision gets stuck at one point in space and somehow you are allowed to walk away from it and enter it from another angle. In a way, you are in an abstract map of your own vision. My yogi and monk friends often see my work from the angle of ‘Maya.’ It is an illusory world that we inhabit and it is only through the mediated do we try to make sense of our world. What is real and how do you recognize it? There are many questions that I have in my mind and that comes out through the work.

Tell us about your current work

I am doing an installation at Pepper House where I work now from nine in the morning to nine at night. You enter this seventy foot long room with scrolls of paper hanging floor to ceiling at twelve feet height. You see a swirling group of planets, an astronomy diagram that are actually based on the ‘Suryasiddhanta,’ an ancient text. It talked about gravity and calculus way before Newton. A lot of the drawings and mythologies are projected on large sheets of paper. Then you come across a table where there is an open manuscript where birds are fling, a tree is growing and people are moving.

It is a conglomeration of the history of Kerala. Afterwards, you enter a maze of hanging scrolls and as you walk around you see semi abstract drawings. You walk further and you see yourself as a live projection where you are now in the book. You have become a character in the manuscript and the latest addition to Kerala’s history.

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