Enriching Art Practices through Research
25-27 November 2011
Organized by LASANAA and headed by Ashmina Ranjit and Stephanie Spray, the three-day workshop Techné-kalā, for emerging Nepali artists and art educators is finally here. The workshop will question the common Nepalese-artist hesitancy to incorporate “research” into practices, instead encouraging participants to incorporate research activities into their work to enrich their creative processes. As said by Henri Matisse, “Creativity takes courage”, and this is what LASANAA is all about.
Techné-kalā intends to promote the expansion of conventional conceptions of Nepali art practices and to encourage collaborations between participants, artists and their communities. The group will consider examples of contemporary art projects in Nepal and abroad that incorporate research into crucial components of art making, and participants will simultaneously develop and conceptualize art projects of their own, in response to the workshop’s premise.
After completing the workshop, participants will be eligible to apply for limited funding to realize the projects conceptualized during the workshop. Groups and individuals selected will be given access to LASANAA’s Live Art Hub (on the premises of Martin Chautari, in Thapathali) to develop their work, which will be exhibited in a group show February 2012.
The selected participants for this workshop are:
- Amrit Karki, Pokhara <amrit.karki7@gmail.com>,
- Anil Shahi,
- Bikas Shrestha, Pokhara <quadrapillion@gmail.com>
- Bindu Gurung, 9849676172, <bindu.bfa8.@kuart.edu.np>
- Deepak Thami, 9849136370, <santoshthami@gmail.com>
- Isan Pariyar, <ishan.pariyar@gmail.com>
- “Kuldeep Jung Gurung” <anupdip@hotmail.com>
- Laxman Bazra Lama, 9841017981, <laxman.bfa08@kuart.edu.np>
- Mahesh Bastakoti, 9849063980, <lart_myheart@yahoo.com>
- Muna Bhadel, 9849108565, <munabhadel@live.com>
- Nabin Nalbo, 977-9803766353, <nabin.bfa8.@kuart.edu.np>
- Namrata Singh, 9841871074, <kali_me22@yahoo.com>
- Rita Maharjan, 9849120621, <riti_maharjan@yahoo.com>
- Sandeep Neupane, 9849055331, <sandeep_neupane2003@yahoo.com>
- Sandhya Silwal <silwal.sandhya@gmail.com>
- 15.Sabita Dangol / shrestha <cute_sabita81@yahoo.com>
- Sapana Shah, 9803187593, <sapana.bfa8.@kuart.edu.np>
- Satyasheela Kasaju <see123la@yahoo.com>
- Saurganga Darshandhari, <dsaurganga@yahoo.com>,
- Sujan Dangol, 9841749387, <sujan.bfa8.@kuart.edu.np>
- Sunil Pradhan, 9808300573, <sunil.bfa08@kuart.edu.np>, <mesunilcha@yahoo.com>
- Supriya Manandhar, 9843108383, <supriya.manandhar@gmail.com>
The timings of the workshop are as follows:
DAY ONE: 25 November 2011 (7-10AM)
The program began at 7:30 with a short introduction by the 36-odd participants and workshop members. The workshop leaders gave a brief introductory talk about LASANNAA before jet-setting into the main objective of the workshop – to learn to think of art as a rational process.
A single question fueled the initial discussion– what is research in terms of art? One participant said that research is in everything, and thus is also in art. Another said that artistic research needs involvement, participation, and more knowledge than the common layman. Research will make you clearer on where you stand, asserted a third.
In all, most of the participants were in agreement on one point: that research is absolutely necessary.
Here at LASANAA, we believe that research is more of a tool used to forge a deeper understanding between the artist and the subject. With this in mind, we presented a power-point of the works of some international artists who incorporated research to enrich their work, all in different ways: Lucian Freud, Sharon Lockhart, Chris Killip and Pedro Costa.
After viewing photographs, paintings and videos, the discussion turned to what research does to art. One comprehensive reply was that research adds a dimension beyond color and texture; the unseen effort behind the piece affecting what can be seen. How much is seen depends on the individual viewer.
An interesting question that was raised was – how can viewers determine whether the artist has done research or not? The following conclusion was reached – while the presence of research is very clear in some art pieces, and not so clear in others, the main purpose of it is to aid the artist’s personal journey is developing their work – whether the viewer accepts it or not is a different thing.
The workshop continued on an interactive level with other interesting questions, leading to a debate about biases, the inter-subjective, subjective vs. objective perspectives, and so on. But the beauty of art is that it allows for ambiguity. It is “a vehicle for interaction”, as Stephanie put it; artwork is what joins different experiences.
The workshop adjoined at 10am, ending with snacks on the front lawn. Tomorrow’s session will commence at 9am sharp.
DAY TWO:9am – 5pm on Saturday, 26 November 2011
The workshop began at 9:10am, with an introductory discussion of yesterday’s slideshow and feedback from the participants. Confusion about research and how it contributes to the process materialized, and queries were answered. This short discussion was followed by a rapid slideshow of 300 slides, to imprint images in the participants’ minds before break-time.
After break, we presented up to 50 artists, showing documentation of the work, the end product, and even videos of curators and artists talking.
For place-based work, we began with Christo and Jeanne-Claude, followed by Chris Watson’s ‘Weather Report’ and ‘Stepping into The Dark’ Soundscapes, and then James Benning’s ‘13 lakes’ and ‘10 skies’ project. Sophie Calle’s conceptual letter interpretation, Chris Ofili’s painting about a hate killing, Thukral and Tagra’s global storytelling, Cindy Sherman’s photographic work and Chitra Ganesh’s use of her own body in her works, were a few other powerful works. The other artists presented included Damian Ortega, Cai Guo-Qiang, Bharti Kher’, Subodh BH, Raginj Upadhyaya and Janine Antoni, the presentation including photographs, film segments, paintings and sculptures, finally concluding with a viewing portion of Deborah Stratman’s film, From ‘Hetty to Nancy’. Some of these works showed the entire process of using research for art, others merely hinted at it, the point of the presentation being to show how different artists might have taken their process and research.
Supriya said that the works presented were giving her new ideas, but that the whole idea of research was becoming vague and nebulous. “Is it possible to teach people research?” she questioned. “How do you nurture research?” To this, Sujan Chitrakar said that the term “research” was used for convenience instead of accuracy, and proposed the term “journal” instead. The biggest problem, he said, was that artists didn’t know what they wanted to do. The talk turned to how artists sometimes lost their energy and initial enthusiasm in the middle of research, but as Sujan Dangol pointed out, “The main point of research is to reach that block”. “Even realizing that you can’t go further from that point is research” added Ashmina. “Confusion is necessary” stated Bindu Gurung.
That the viewed projects were of too large a scale to be relevant to the participants was another concern. The Mastaba project, for instance, is to be larger than the pyramids, and has been in work from 1977 AD. However, we believe that artists should never limit themselves conceptually, and that it never hurts to have big ideas. “The concept has to be strong – the budget is secondary” artist Sujan Chitrakar remarked. The presented artists had often started out small too.
“Ideas don’t materialize out of thin air- they develop from other ideas” added Sujan Dangol. “Looking at these slides, we develop our own imaginations.”
The discussion touched on the spiritual with Kuldip, who was of the opinion that there are two basic questions – how we paint and why we paint, which, he says, we have to ask ourselves before we can create art. There were questions about dismantling land art from Laxman, and then, sparking a debate that fired into lunch was the question of why paintings can’t be understood as easily as music. The debate let to a discussion about what art is, elite and simple art, the local mindset regarding the arts, Nepali appreciation, and the need for change.
After lunch, the participants presented their potential projects verbally, before dividing into five groups – Artists’ Relationships with Human Subjects, Site Specific/Environment, Politics, Investigations into Culture, and Alternative Narratives of Gender and Sexuality – to discuss their separate projects and to try to fuse their different ideas into one. They also talked of Nepali artists, and each group chose one Nepali artist to present to the other groups. The final list of the presented artists consisted of:
Bal Krishna Banamala
Durga Baral
Asha Dangol and Erina Tamrakar
Manoj Babu Mishra
Sagar Manandhar
The groups once again took a break to further discuss and present their proposals. After listening to them, Jupiter asked participants to think about the possibilities that can be used to go further into depth. “Subjective research comes first. Only then do you determine the medium, and start your technical research”. On this note, the day’s session ended, and the participants dispersed, promising to arrive at Martin Chautari well before the starting time the following day.
DAY THREE: 7am – 11am on Sunday, 27 November 2011
Most of the participants had arrived well before 7am, in time for the “Beyond Research” segment of the presentation that, as Stephanie warned, “took off into another direction completely”. Today, we presented four examples of performance artists who indulged in bodily research:
Bas Jan Ader, who made pieces for film for an imagined audience, Marina Abramovic, who creates controversial and difficult to watch, but incredibly powerful performances, Stephen Prina who usually re-appropriates other works of art in his own ways, and Coco Fusco, who depicts social, political and racial happenings. All these artists work in completely different ways, but what they have in common is that they all divest tremendous effort into research and background.
After talking about these artists, the participants adjourned for an hour before lunch to discuss their tentative proposal ideas with their groups. After break, the participants briefly talked about further developing their proposals and were reminded of proposal submission deadlines, after which Stephanie told them about structuring a grant proposal. Her main advice was for them to keep their proposals clear, concise and reeking of confidence. The participants were reminded that they weren’t bound to each letter of their proposal, and there was always room to improvise.
The final discussion ended with the participants sharing their views about the workshop. “The presented works range to the extremes”, Supriya, who began the discussion, commented, finishing with the remark that “research is not just a background, but an autonomous entity possessing special value on its own.” “The workshop has helped us to look at things and think of how to use them”, said Saurganga, and Satya added, “Learning about the methods these artists have used is useful for everyone”.
Sujan presented a more metaphoric comment, saying that his way used to be direct, aiming straight for the completed project, but now, by identifying research, he was down to the bricks. “I loved learning how to identify research” was Sandeep’s more literal comment.
In all, the workshop was a positive experience, and the previously withdrawn participants left after cheery goodbyes, and a promise to return to the Live Art Hub.
