The virtual counterpart of an exhibition that is now touring three Indian cities,

Kolkata, New Delhi and Bangalore,

BUILDING BRIDGES

presents the works of 13 young artists

who, from different countries and cultures,

participated in a month long exchange and conversation

around the theme of crossing divides and encountering ‘the other’.

Common cares and concerns, shared awareness, life experiences,

feelings and memories, have here found a voice and taken expressive form.

The project was conceived and created by Indian artist Ushmita Sahu,

who is also curating the exhibitions, in collaboration with Emergent Art Space.

ENJOY THE SHOW!

Click on the images to enlarge them

Windows

by Bhargav Barla

Visakhapatnam, India

Windows act as portholes between two different scenes.

The view through a porthole can affect the mood of the person looking through it. Often mood also manifests in the drama of the view. The play of light, the things that stand out in the visual array and proximities, all play a key role in the drama.

There is a sense of melancholy, at times a lonely longing for company after being alienated from someone, at times a simple peaceful solitude or a chaotic mess.

The Anomalies

by Nathi Khumalo

Soweto, South Africa

Having a rush of awkward dreams and seeking to attach reality to them. What is known becomes seemingly forgotten, surfacing insecurities and fears.

These images, taken around the Central Business District of Johannesburg, explore interrupted moments and scenes from the past, much like déja vus. Moving in and around different and familiar spaces is an experimental approach that aims at raising key questions.

Most of the structures, built during the colonial era, now have taken on a different meaning. These images want to remind us of where we came from and how we are reusing the same spaces and statues that represented oppression.

FRÁGIL

by Alejandro Zertuche

Monterrey, Mexico

The 'Frágil' project is an ongoing material investigation of obsidian stone, an ancient icon in many civilizations. Its physical and symbolic possibilities are researched and the artwork points to social and political conditions of existence through actions with the stone.

In its mirror form, obsidian is a dimensional portal for unbounded entities. Fractures in the stone are created to liberate those entities.

Is it possible to similarly liberate reflected forms of failed modernity? Can we change the ways we live? Are we doomed repeat history?

A structure is not made just of solid matter; it must connect by other means.

Seige of Shangri-la

by Pranay Dutta

Kolkata, India

This series explores a Himalayan utopia gradually transforming into an urban utopia. Reflecting on the degradation of vast expanses of serene lands, it envisions a future where Shangri-La, the hidden fictional mountain paradise, is infiltrated and sabotaged.

Borders of this kingdom become palpable and vulnerable to breaches by human infiltration and urban structures. Just like ever expanding cities and the loss of surrounding uninhabited spaces, a place that was once in solitude is now left in a concrete rut.

The structures look displaced, creating a sense of conflict. The organic forms of mountains repel urban structures, creating a sense of divide.

Sea Monsters / Bred in Captivity

by Sarasija Subrumanian

New Delhi, India

Breeding in captivity raises moral conflicts. Creatures will never know their true habitat and, therefore, will never have a chance to miss home.

Reflecting on paradoxical questions related to the interventions of man in nature, while engrossed in the workings of an Irish coral farm in the Inagh Valley, this work is a dialogue between contradictory modes of knowledge - how they simultaneously validate and disprove each other’s sanctity.

Scientifically charged spaces, like a coral hatchery, seen in line with vast, untouched landscapes containing stories of the Celts, Druids and Loch Ness, offer different entryways into understanding the relationship of landscape, sea, man and nature.

Humanimal Kingdom

by Dengke Chen

Florida, United States

Dense smog is occurring in cities across the world, causing respiratory diseases and death. Masks invented for protection from poison gas in World War I and dangerous levels of air pollution are growing in use. Are we leading ourselves to an era where every living creature needs to wear a gas mask to adapt?

Worldwide construction and expansion has dramatically altered the landscape and changed the native species’ way of life.

With narrations created from the animals’ point of view, Humanimal Kingdom is a digital animation/installation depicting the environmental impact of our civilized world, its consequences and by-products.

                         ‘Time, Thoughts

Incoherent’

by Sonam Chaturvedy

Delhi, India

This audio-visual installation is an experiment in disorienting the listener, with an attempt to discomfort through intimacy of the voice, small scale of the book and intricately detailed photographs. It functions to evoke the passage of time and an absence in presence.

Rendering the memory towards incoherence, it overfeeds the brain, mixing visual, temporal and experiential contexts, which interrupt psychological projections of segregated, singular and linear time constructs. Like when we try to recall our childhood or dreams, it seems incoherent and fragmented, like a pastiche of all past memories layered on the present.

Using techniques of partially revealed/hidden meanings, this project offers an intimate audio/visual-scape of fragmented and incoherent personal memories.

Envision

by Tatjana Henderieckx

Antwerp, Belgium

'Envision' is a mix of archive photos, new pictures and letters in one book.

Exploring the idea of presumption, it is a reflection on my own story. From a young age, I have been bothered with stereotypes, looking Asian on the outside, but considering myself Western, among other cultural identities.

This book is a reflection on how we see, and the differences it can bring. Engaging deeply with my personal archive, including adoption letters, the book balances narrative text and visuals.

Images of sculptures made by Charlot Van Geert’s add another layer and universal relevance to the topic.

Connect?

by Kate McElroy

Limerick, Ireland

Reaching, longing, offering, giving, refusing, protecting, withdrawing, defending - hands can portray the wealth of our often contradictory responses, with urges to connect and belong, but also to push away and protect.

Relationships are integral to who we are and our survival. Screens, walls, distances and our own psychological shields can remove us from each other. Each individual contains an inner world, invisible to the eye.

By prompting the viewer to look closer and by playing with perceptions I wish to invite the viewer to comprehend a reality beyond what is merely visible. Engaging intuition, empathy and emotion is required to fully try to comprehend another.

This work displays a longing for this deeper type of intimacy.

Memory Bridges

by Jasmina Runevska 

Prilep, Macedonia

These compositions tell stories about memories - hidden secrets of a woman not appropriate for sharing with society. The stories are put into drawers, boxes or closed objects, because nobody should listen, hear, or see them.

No matter what the language, identity or role in society, we all have fears, hidden feelings, lost loved ones, oppressions, dreams . . . 

Photos and sounds are honest documentations of the present, or of the forgotten and hidden “here and now” objects and words, keepers of the past in the present. They build bridges across differences, the tradition and the modern, and among all different identities of ‘the Other’.

A Retelling

by Ashok Vish

Bangalore, India 

This project explores the phenomenon of the rewriting and retelling of myths. There is no single version of a myth and we have been telling our myths in different ways for centuries. Each telling is inflected by time, place, caste, religion, politics and ideology.

Examining gender fluidity and transformation, this work experiments with creating a crossover between the two yugas (eras) of two ancient Indian epics poems -- the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

Draupadi and Sita, two of the main characters, are mythically born from the primordial elements of Earth and Fire. Since it was an age-old belief that women weren’t worthy enough to be on stage, the same man here performs both characters.

Untitled

by Souvik Majumdar

Kolkata, India

This photo series is about home, its inanimate objects, and how they reside.

Of interest are the different approaches to the handling and arranging of the same objects, according to their specific character, by my mother, father and myself.

Using negatives and inverted digital photos to provide a different perspective from what the human eye sees, this work uses the freedom of editing, akin to painting, to transform images into something different.

The audio track aims to add to the portraits, building connections between still images and the absent sounds of their environment.

Man Up!

by Vishal Kumaraswamy

Bangalore, India

Using toxic masculinity as an example, as well as a metaphor, for oppressive behavior and the need to conform, Man Up! references some of the discussions with artists on the Building Bridges blog.

These conversations skirted the topic of colonization and its effects, as well as the metaphysical discourse surrounding notions of "the other”, clairvoyance in our individual practices and the lines we could draw between them.

The work intends to articulate that all oppression is about power, and power is individual, by highlighting the state of gender equality as its focus.