The National Workshop aims to enable artists and potential live art hub partners to develop strategies for creating a common shared vision and plans for building on the strategies agreed upon during the Conference. It will also focus on sensitizing, empowering and promoting artivism at central and local levels. Most artists are still focused on beauty and balance at the aesthetic level. They have yet to venture out of their comfort zones to tackle socio-political aspects. The Four Days Workshop will start by building on the outputs of the international conference- Glocalization of Art: Contemporary Art Practices’, then explore and create new art forms that will be exhibited at the open day on Day 4. The Workshop will conclude with the establishment of an informal network of artivists that contribute regularly to the eventual establishment of the Live Art Hub.
Glocalization of Art: Contemporary Art Practices: 1-4 December 2010, Following the International Conference, a National Workshop was held from December 1-4, 2010. The workshop’s aim was to enable artists and potential Live Art Hub partners to develop strategies for creating a common shared vision for the Live Art Hub, to build on the strategies agreed upon during the conference, to give participants an guided group experience in developing a contemporary art project in alternate media and to promote a democratic, sharing culture that will provide the foundation for future work within the Live Art Hub project. It also focused on sensitizing, empowering and promoting artivism at the central and local levels. We felt it was important to promote this because most artists are still focused on beauty and balance at the aesthetic level; they have yet to venture out of their comfort zones to tackle socio-political aspects. The workshop built directly on the outputs of the International Conference, then explored and expressed new/alternative forms of art that were then showcased to the general public on the open-day on December 4, 2010.
The workshop started with a Heritage Walk guided by the internationally well-respected urban planner and active public intellectual Mr. Anil Chitrakar at Patan. This activity allowed the group to focus on the concept of “glocalization” given Mr. Chitrakar’s ability to explain the presence of the historical, the local and the global in particular temples and other architectural and urban sites. Not just for those unfamiliar with Patan but also for those very familiar with the city, Mr. Chitrakar’s guided tour helped change fixed notions of what is local, what is global and the manner in which they influence each other. After returning from the walk the participants discussed and developed their conceptual plans for their art projects within their groups. The facilitators, resource persons and coordinators supported each group while developing their concepts and through the creation process of their projects. This encouraged all the participants to interact with one another and helped create a sense of equality and encouraged a group democratic process. Through this process of interacting, arguing and creating without any hierarchical social positions, an understanding and a practice of everyday democracy emerged. Divided into six different groups for the collaborative projects, participants from Kathmandu and other parts were mixed together in each group to promote the exchange of ideas and learning process in a balanced way since participants from outside the valley have had less exposure compared to those from within the valley. On the open-day seven socio-political-conceptual pieces were presented by the groups using different alternative media including installations, performance as well as interactive forms. The Workshop concluded with the establishment of an informal network of artivists that regularly contribute to the ongoing the Live Art Hub project.
PARTICIPANTS
- Ms. Sushma Shakya
- Mr. Prakash Ranjit
- Ms. Bidhata KC
- Ms. Manju Syawla
- Ms. Samjhana Rajbhandari
- Ms. Ganga Subedi
- Ms. Sunita Rana
- Ms. Saurganga Darshandhari
- Ms. Rabita Kisi
- Ms. Satyashila Kashaju
- Ms. Prabha Gurung
- Mr. Mahendra Rai
- Mr. Sudearshan Rana
- Mr. Bhuwan Thapa
- Mr. Ganesh Kumar GC
- Mr. Keshab Raj Khanal
- Mr. Tika Dutta Dahal
- Mr. Uday Karmacharya
- Mr. Mekh Limbu
- Mr. Rajan Kaphle
- Mr. Jyoti Duwadi
Participants were divided into six different groups as A, B, C, D, E and F for the collaborative projects, participants from Kathmandu and other parts were mixed together in each group to promote the exchange of ideas and learning process in a balanced way since participants from outside the valley have had less exposure compared to those from within the valley. The facilitators, resource persons and coordinator are also joined in one of the groups as participants and created an Interactive Art Piece. All together seven art art pieces were created using alternative and mixed media.
Group A(Manju Shyaula, Sunita Rana & Mahendra Rai):
Mapping/ InteractiveInstallation: Human life is becoming more complicated in the search of easy going life. Thoughts are narrowed down in the name of broad vision. Still, humans are rapidly searching to have ease and comfortable life. With the same perspective the art has been presented.
Mapping/ InteractiveInstallation by Group A; visitor enquiring about the work
Mapping/ InteractiveInstallation by Group A; Visitors interacting with the work
GroupB(Samjhana Rajbhandari, Bhuwan Thapa, Ganesh Kumar G.C. & Keshab Raj Khanal):
Intervention/Installation: Culture and human behavior complement each other. Present become history tomorrow. Good human action gives a golden color to history. Though our history is golden, its treasures are being erased. Cultures arriving from elsewhere are distorting indigenous history. In the context of globalization it is important both to embrace good traditions and to preserve them.
We are not able to recognize ourselves. It is difficult to find a culture that is diverse and rich as ours. But, just like a deer that runs around to seek the source of smell emanating from its own body, we are seeking other sources of culture rather than appreciating our own culture.
Description of work: Thousands of years old statues, paintings and religious scripts in our temples are disappearing. In the name of modernity houses and apartment complexes are being built in haphazard manner. Pollution is increasing. Rapid increase of cars and other vehicles is not only congesting the road but also disturbing the social fabric.
We need to aware of such a state affairs. We need to protect our cultural treasures and our environment ourselves, instead for looking for foreign assistance to solve our problems. This installation art is conceived with an aim of addressing these issues.
Method of work: In this installation a number of cardboard boxes, with commercial advertisement painted upon them, are used to create a pyramid shaped temple. In the empty spaces-places were statues of gods and goddesses should have been- are the image of dollars. The temple is supported by bamboo, representing traditional structure. Juxtaposed with it, however, is a television showing advertisements. In t=front of the temple is a narrow, dirty lane. Incense sticks are lit to make gods happy but people trample upon the photographs of divinities lying beside those sticks. All this is intended to satirize those who have forgotten how to preserve and appreciate their cultures. -
Intervention/Installation created by group B; visitor walking in the installation.
Group C: (Uday Karmacharya, Tika Dutta Dahal, Ganga Subedi & Bidhata K.C.)
Wires/Installation:The 21st century as we know it, is called the age of information and technology and it has been called the golden age of electronics. These improved technologies have definitely made our lives so much easier and it won’t be wrong to say we are totally dependent on them today. For everything we use wires, which go from one house to the other.
Wire/Installation created by Group C.
But we haven’t been able to organize these wires around our city or our country properly. The minute we walk out our homes we see wires hanging loosely along the road, many wires tangled together and just left like that, without being attended to. The electrical poles are so over burdened with wires, it feels as if it’s going to fall off any minute. It seems even the responsible organization have chosen to keep quiet about it. So here we are presenting to you those things which we see every day but still go about ignoring them, simple things like wires, which makes the city look so untidy and ugly, just because the way it has been left unattended. Therefore through our art we want to spread the awareness to get these wires organized.-
Wire/Installation created by Group C; Visitors looking atthe art work on Open Day.
Photo/Interactive Installation: Is being alive. … living! If that is so, then everyone in this universe is living. We human being are sensible, we do posses the potential to do great things in life, just like so many people here in this instillation. These people in these pictures have time and again done so many good things for our society and the country and that is what they aspire us to do as well. This work of art is only to inspire you viewers to do great things in life just like them… because we do have the potential!!!!!
Human life is becoming complicated in the search of easy access of services and products for daily life. Thoughts are narrowed down in the name of broad vision. Human life and his work are representation of reaction and human thoughts.
Photo/Interactive Installation created by Group C
Photo/Interactive Installation created by Group C; Visitors interacting
Group D(Satya Sila Kashaju, Sudarshan Rana, Lok Prasad Gurung & Prakash Ranjit):
Power/ Installation:
Power can be ego centric or centric or dominating but it is necessary for all system. All individual have potential power. When these individual drawn in their egos, they don’t have any use except for themselves. The chair represents power. Each primary color shows their individuality and potential for achieving possession. When colors are linked together they are capable to hold a delicate object effectively. It is a fact that prism refracts rays into seven colors. This combination of colors show the beauty of unification in diversity.
Power/Installation by Group D (Artist Sudershan Rana and a viwer enjoying the work)
Visitors looking at work and talking to artist on Open Day
Group E(Rabita Kisi, Saur Ganga Darshandhari & Prabha Gurung):
The Color Play/Performance: The color not only carries aesthetic value but also evoke different meanings in different context. Traces of history remind us the nature and culture of color having different physical and cultural implications respectively. The color red is generally associated with two emoticons contributing to life i.e. love and aggression. However our art work is an attempt to evoke the cultural lineage of red with life, joy and celebration as it passes across time. The play of yellow and white adds a flare of optimism, enlightenment and purity to our thoughts and conduct for a new conduct for a new beginning…
The Color Play/ Performance by Group E (Artists perferforming at the center on Red Dress surroundedby Audiences on the Open Day)
The Color Play/ Performance by Group E
Group F:(Mekh Limbu, Sushma Shakya, Jyoti Duwadi, Rajan Kaphle, Jupiter Pradhan & Ashmina Ranjit )
Sakkali – Nakkali/Interactive Installation:
Nepal, the land of marigolds, is defined partly by its special relationship to flowers. Yellow-orange garlands are artfully incorporated into rituals, daily worship, and the panoply of offerings marking auspicious occasions. So what are we to make of the plastic flowers from China that are finding their way into affluent households?
Ashmina Ranjit led a group of artists, including Jyoti Duwadi, Mekh Limbu, Sushma Shakya, Rajan Kaphle, and Jupiter Pradhan, to collaborate on an art installation that addressed the infiltration of Western kitsch culture into Nepal, an issue that reflects a wider shift in the country’s urban life style. The embrace of imitation also suggests a change in people’s relationship to nature, a defining aspect of Nepali identity.
The art installation, Sakkali/Nakkali, is directly responded to the environment in which it was displayed. Lasanaa, an alternative art space, shares its premises with Chameli nursery, which greenhouses an array of plants, some still dormant and others in full bloom. Artists staked artificial flower stems in the real pots of earth and foliage to blend with nature. Visitors enjoyed the challenge of identifying which blossoms were real and which were fake.
Within the greenhouses, artists placed signs with short texts on bamboo posts, raising questions about the growing preference for imitation over authentic nature. In Sakkali/Nakkali, artists challenged the public to think differently about the choices that they make and how it impacts Nepal’s relationship to its culture and nature. (Barbara Matilsky, Curator of Art wrote the text for Sakkali Nakkali)
Sakkali – Nakkali/Interactive Installation by Group F
