Program Consultant Defne Ayas joined an orientation trip for art professionals to Bangladesh, India and Dubai (Dubai Art Fair), sponsored by the Mondriaan Stichting and the Prince Claus Fund. The trip took place from 12 March to 23 of March 2008.
The Prince Claus Fund and the Mondriaan Foundation organise an orientation trip for art professionals from the Netherlands and from other countries. They started with the initiative in 2004 with a trip to Lebanon and Egypt. In 2005 they traveled to China, in 2006 to Senegal and South Africa and in 2007 to Mexico and Curacao.
Art professionals from the Netherlands, Latin America, Asia and Africa are invited to participate in the orientation trip. The goal of this trip is to extend international networks and contacts, and to stimulate the international dialogue between art professionals.
Some travel notes from Defne Ayas below.
Dhaka
Here, we met with the people of DRIK Gallery, who had set up a picture agency representing a group of media professionals, who all share a common goal- one that avoids disaster reporting, but treats journalism as a challenge to change certain perceptions about Third World. Most of photographers are human right activists, and Drik offers them an open source platform, where their works get to be licensed as appropriate. Drik has also pioneered the introduction of email into Bangladesh (they created the first font for email), and seems that they still take the lead in new media. They also started the human rights portal Banglarights, and have a broad band direct satellite link.
The trip’s highlight in Dhaka was visiting the monumental bunker meets parliament edifice by Kahn and also meeting up with Naeem Mohameien (who some of you must know for his work on failed revolutions or collaborations with DJ Spooky) in his hometown. His essay ‘Fear of a Muslim Planet: Islamic Roots of Hip-hop’ was in DJ Spooky book. Naeem works on activist projects in Bangladesh, is well- respected by his older peers and contemporaries, and mainly writes on religious and ethnic minorities in the region.
Delhi
In Delhi, we met the Raqs Media Collective run by media practitioners Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. Their work engages with urban spaces, with a series of investigations thru image, sound, software, objects, performance, print, text and lately, curation (Manifesta 7) with a subtle but consistent critique of power. Over-articulated they are I have to say ! In general, my observation is that the Indians are so very truly brilliant in their mastery of English, thus the reason why all the Post-Colonial Anti-globalization discourse must be streaming from this part of the world!
RMC is also the co-initiator of Sarai (set up in 2001) a program at the university supporting interdisciplinary research and practice on media, city space and urban culture, where they work on projects interpreting the city, make cross-media works, collaborate on software development of software etc, and publish yearly Readers- these series are brilliant.
We also met KHOJ people, whose Live Art Program seemed to be much modeled after PERFORMA, also all in collaboration with public space, non-profit and for-profit spaces, though their content still needs some certain refinement. The artists come from Iran, Egypt (Hassan Khan who I would like us to collaborate with), South Africa, Lebanon, Indonesia etc.
The most brilliant edifice in this city was Humayun’s Tombs from 16th century, the Islamic legacy in the Indian culture (this moghul period was the height of this civilization..). And I was also in love with the Crafts Museum, a delightful tree-shaded place packed with historical material from around India, including textiles, kashmeres, various weaving techniques… There was also a huge 18th-century wooden elaborate balcony suspended within the walls of the space, carpets, games, carvings, masks everywhere. it was a living, an emotionally charged museum, which made most of us cry out of its collection of sheer beauty.
Mumbai
Among all the artists we have met, meeting with Shilpa Gupta ( an inventive Indian new media artist) at Bodhi Art was a highlight, and she is an artist I would like to inquire more about. We also had a presentation by the super-prolific and dedicated artist Nikhil Chopra on his performance “Memory Drawing II” at the gallery Chatterjee & Lal. We were lucky to also meet Sudarshan Sheety, who currently has a show up at Jack Tilton. He seems he might be a master of stages and sets !
Dubai
My immediate impression is that this place was Singapore-minus tropics and plus more glossy cookie-cutter buildings and of giant ambitions. Dubai in fact is a very Arab-centric renaissance city, maybe a bit like LA in the 60s, where money / glamour existed, but nothing else, no soul or spirit, or maybe it could as well be an islamic florence..the notion of engineering is very visible, and they for sure keep their architects busy ! Hans Ulrich Obrist, Rem Koolhaas, David Ross, GLenn Lowry were all there, and giving the Dubai authorities their ideas on how to turn this state into a cultural paradise..The Sheik wants to turn Dubai into a Hub of Arts and Culture for the region. I ended up meeting one of the authority managers for 10 minutes.
Abu Dhabi:
This is the other Emirates, they are competing with Dubai, have more money, but are more into the import-export museum business. Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid is designing the Performing Arts Center. Gehry the Gugg, Piano the Louvre..Adjaye, Tadao Ando all doing additional projects… My favorite was of course an Islamic collection that was on view par chance, drawn from the private holdings of the Iranian-Jewish Khalili, tracing artistic refinement of Islamic art, from the earliest examples of lustre painted ceramics, glass and textiles to the brilliant output of the Ottoman period (16th to 19th centuries), with manuscripts, Iznik pottery, and jeweled objects from Mughal India…
Here i stop. I has been only 24 hours that I came back, so am still digesting it all.
Over all, the trip allowed for productive findings re. calligraphy/typoraphy/, urbanism issues, fashion, exciting new materials in new media and performance from middle east, india and beyond, and made me see some of the parallel plays between india, china and dubai.
Defne Ayas, 2008
