Sept - Oct 2018
KYTA
A TRAVEL AND ART EXPERIMENT
KYTA 2018
SEPT 08 - OCT 15 / KALGA, HIMACHAL PRADESH
The 5th annual edition of KYTA will host 10 artists from India and Europe. The residency will focus on building new artworks spread across the village and its structures and producing new performance, live experiences and digital artworks captured and housed permanently in our electronic archives.
As part of developing creative facilities in the village, in this edition, we will establish plans for an R&D facility exploring the intersection of AI and Nature, an extreme-subject library / archive, and a workshop with tools for soft metal, wood and stone.
OPEN VILLAGE SHOWCASE 2018 | 12-15 OCT
Being the landmark 5th year as a travel and art experiment, we invite you to join the celebrations at the Open Village Showcase to experience the magic of the Himalayan village and its artistic family.
PROGRAM PARTNER
ARTIST SUPPORT
ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE
The fifth edition of KYTA will host 10 resident artists working across a wide spectrum of experimental practices in soil studies, sound, music, installation art, fashion, social practice, visual art and sculpture.
[Scroll down to view the artist profiles]
Poetry / Theatre
HOME TEAM
Artist and Residency Manager
MEET THE ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE
Aline Veillat was born in the Réunion island, Indian Ocean, and grew up till her last teenage years in Rabat, Morocco. Later she lived in Paris, France and Lausanne, Switzerland and since many years she works as an artist and lives in Basel, Switzerland.
She is working as an artist researcher as an independent and as well in the moment for FHNW University of Art and Design Basel, Switzerland. She is also an associate researcher at IMéRA foundation for advanced studies Marseille, France.
She holds MA and PhD degrees in Aesthetic, Sciences and Technologies of Arts from Paris 8 University, France, and Post-Diploma in Digital Media from ECAL Lausanne Cantonal Art School, Switzerland.
ALINE VEILLAT
(Switzerland)
As an Independent artist researcher, her current interest is 'ecosystem as systems of interactions between organic and inorganic agencies, transforming the world and producing signs.
Since 2016: involved in three art&sciences research projects on ecological issues
- Eco-data Basel Academy of Art and Design and Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (CH)
- Culture and memories of flood, University Haute Alsace, Mulhouse Research Centre for Economies, Societies, Arts and Techniques (FR)
- Thinking from the bottom up, when the soil yields its secrets, Aix-Marseille University, Mediterranean Institute of Marine and Terrestrial Biodiversity and Ecology (FR).
Grants art&sciences residencies:
- Research Institute of Mountain Hazard and Environment, Chengdu (CN), exchange grant from
Pro-helvetia/Artist-in-Labs (CH)
- International Institute of Tropical Forestry, Puerto-Rico (USA)
- IméRA Institute for Advanced Study, Marseille (FR)
Art works exhibited in Europe, USA, and China.
VIVEK CHOCKALINGAM
(INDIA)
Vivek Chockalingam is an artist/curator currently residing in Bangalore. After completing his undergraduate in product design from Srishti school of Art, Design and Technology, 2008, he started practicing art. His work began growing in physical size and hence he did an architecture course from Sci-Arc, LA, USA, 2014 (scholarship).
His body of work includes public art projects, commissions, large-scale installation work and other diverse projects. The focus is mainly in producing experiential works exploring contextual scenarios. The work often emphasises on the process of creation and allows for collaborations with people from various disciplines.
More recently Vivek has been playing the role of a curator and over the couple of years his home has transformed into an artist residency/gallery space - Walkin Studios.
In 2015 he was awarded a fellowship with Kochi Biennale Foundation as a ‘Young Curator’ for the students Biennale 2016/17, and in 2016 he was selected to participate in the ‘Young Curators Workshop’ as a part of the Berlin Biennale 2016. Presently he is seeking to reshape his art practice and explore the lines between the role of a curator and artist, focussing on collaborations between artists and audience interaction/participation with the art.
"DJ Urine (french anagram for Ruine, Nuire & Réuni) is a sculptor and sound artist with a great passion for his work.
After seeing many performances that rely on computerised sound manipulation, it is extremely refreshing to see such a hands on approach. Instead of cutting and pasting snippets of audio together on a laptop, Dj Urine reaches for the superglue and creates literal sound collages from
fragments of vinyl records. These are assembled in a variety of ways, from the pizza slice method to fine mosaics and played on up to 1 to 7 phonograph simultaneously, to build up rhythms, loops and textures out of many different musical genres. Sped-up Bollywood vocals can be heard over corrupted bars of Frank Zappa, French folk songs, spoken word guitar tutors and breakcore, resulting in a delightfully chaotic barrage of sounds. That whole process is executed in a thoughtful and imaginative way, and with a sense of humour. DJ Urine creates finely crafted noise with an energy that is ever present in the results."
https://cargocollective.com/djurine
DJ URINE (SEBASTIEN LEMONON)
(NETHERLANDS)
poonam jain
(INDIA)
Poonam Jain was born in Bangalore (1989) to a Jain family. Aspiring to become a Jain nun, she joined art school almost by chance, just because she liked drawing. It was the art school and people whom she met and learnt about that expanded her worldview.
The process of questioning and un/re learning the ‘taught’ becomes the essence of her drawings, installations, sculptures and gestural works. She often shifts personal experiences to social concerns and vise-a-versa. With repetition, counting and measuring, she analyses domestic (micro) narratives as dialogues between economy and pedagogy.
She was a resident at Art Dubai 2018. She was a member of Clark house Initiative, Bombay from 2011 to 2016. Some of her group exhibitions were in Sapar contemporary, NY; New Gallery, Paris; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; INSERT 2014, New Delhi; GdanskaGaleria Miejska 2, Poland; MKG127, Canada. She has had solo exhibitions in Clark House Initiative, Bombay, 1X1 Art Gallery, Dubai. She lives and works in Bombay.
View Portfolio
Marlene Hausegger (b.1984 in Leoben, Austria) studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and the École des Beaux Arts in Montpellier. She is particularly interested in the hidden limitations and restricted possibilities of social situations, which she primarily discovers in the public realm. The results of this work are often temporary interventions and installations - as well as the accompanying drawings and videos which are notable for their formal lightness, cryptic humour and visual power.
(text by liquid frontiers)
Selected Exhibitions: Vernacular Institute, Mexico City (2017), Kyoto Experiment Art Festival, Japan (2016), Biennial Konjic, Bosnia and Herzegovina (2015), Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Havanna, Cuba (2015), Stedelijk Museum, s´Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands (2013), Projektraum Viktor Bucher, Vienna (2017/12/11), Steirischer Herbst (2015/ 2010), rotor, Graz (2014/2010), Museum LENTOS, Linz (2010).
http://mmhhh.com/
MARLENE HAUSSEGER
(AUSTRIA)
SMRUTHI GARGI ESWAR
(INDIA)
Smruthi Gargi Eswar is a graphic artist based out of Bangalore and Delhi. She studied at the Baroda Faculty of Fine Arts and at Chitrakala Parishad briefly. Her art studies though,had started earlier, while she was still a student at The Valley School KFI. She runs her own collaborative space
(Studio Smu), with shows travelling to Budapest, New York, Cochin, Delhi and Mumbai from her studio in Bangalore.
She is also a board member of Art in Social Structures, an international NGO run and funded by artists that believes
that art is the building block of all social structures. Her photography work has been published in India and the
Philippines.
From a fine arts education she moved on to graphic design and photography almost immediately. Over the last few
years, she moved back into the space of Fine Art finding an avenue to explore address and express at a more personal
level. The journey from graphic design to art, established the medium in which her works are created.
Her solo show for the series Sister Misfortune, was held in Cochin India (at the Open Eyed Dreams gallery). Also the
series was shown at the False Ceiling and at the Art Loft for the Art Hop Festival in Mumbai. In Bangalore a few from the
series were shown at the group shows -
4 Walls, held at The Taj West End and the VR Bengaluru by Art Chutney.
4 new pieces “Seasoned” have been commissioned and created from the series for the Label Ritu Kumar. Walking the line between design and art Smruthi is keen on exploring the world around her as she blurs the lines between the two.
Lately she has collaborated with the Asian Heritage Foundation (New Delhi) in their Gond Tribal Art cluster in Madhya Pradesh. Running and creating a workshop in Art & Story Telling.
Abi Joy Samuel is an established illustrator, artist and print designer who divides her time between living in London, UK and Mumbai, India.
Having studied art at the prestigious Central Saint Martins and later obtaining a degree in Fashion Design at the University of Westminster, Abi has a wealth of artistic training and experience that merges fine art with fashion to explore human experience.
Abi is a full time artist having worked for some very influential fashion brands including McQ Alexander McQueen (London), Manish Arora (New Delhi) and Aganovich (Paris).
ABI JOY SAMUEL
(UK)
Alexis Cicciù (b.1984 in Varese, Italy) lives and works in Menton, France.
He studied at Pavillon Bosio, École supérieure d'arts plastiques de la Ville de Monaco and at Ecole Supérieure d'Art Annecy Alpes. Between shamanism and bestiary, his practice is showed as performative but he feels first of all a sculptor. Fascinated by nature and biology, he is passionate about taxonomy, a insects breeder and a collector.
He briefly lived in Brussels where he met the Abilene gallery. Two performances were born of this collaboration in 2012 and 2013. His first personal exhibition was held by the Couac in Villeurbanne in 2014.
In 2015 and 2016, he participated at the Nomad Workshop, a residence in Wiltz and at Casino, art center, in Luxembourg. In 2018, he participated at hydrogYnesis, a collective exhibition on the theme of seas and sirens.
Alexis Cicciù
(italy)
ABHISHEK PANDAY
(INDIA)
Abhishek got introduced to art in his high school days. He started sketching at first but eventually took to sculpture and explored with a variety of mediums while he was at college.
He believes in the spontaneity of thoughts and processes.This provides him with freedom to explore the depths of his mind with unrestricted creativity.
Abhishek has been awarded a scholarship in the field of sculpture and visual art by Ministry Of Culture. He has been a resident artist at Kalakriti Art Gallery in 2018 and participated in the north east sculpture camp in wood carving, at Lalit Kala Academy. He has also organised workshops of his own.
Currently he is practicing at his Studio “Kalaprabha” in Pune with his group and aims to create more opportunities for the benefit of other artists.
Sarah Bahr (born in 1986, Germany) is a writer and visual artist working in the domain of theatre and poetry. She also works as free-lance stage director and stage designer in contemporary performance and theatre. She is interested in the poetic potential of fiction, the limits of written language and the intertwinement of literacy, orality and music. She holds a Master in Applied Theatre Studies of the University of Giessen in Germany, as well as a Master in Art of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Lyon.
Her main topics are the investigation of states of anxiety as well as euphoria triggered by various forms of contemporary lifestyles (nomadism, liberalism, consumerism), the usage of language in specific cultural settings, the exploration of regional traditions and mindsets as well as the prospecting of relations between humans and nature. Her approach consists in mixing various strains of ethnological data – interviews, audio recordings, notated descriptions – leading eventually to forms of fictional narration such as poetic prose and dialogued scripts as the basis for performance or theatre. She currently works on research for a project with electro acoustics and bio-data and several poetry book-projects.
SARAH BAHR
(FRANCE)
WANDER WORKSHOP SERIES
OPEN VILLAGE SHOWCASE 2018
#LiveFromKalga
Tritha Sinha and Fazal Rashid
13 Oct | 6pm
Tritha & Fazal's performance at KYTA 2018 will combine music and narration to seamlessly weave together words with melody and rhythm. They will combine folk stories and traditional origin myths with primordial sounds, beats and calls to create an atmosphere contemporary and accessible, yet timeless and originary. In contrast to modern stories that place 'man' at the center, elements and natural spirits both play a central role in indigenous stories. What does it mean to believe the world is run by Natural Spirits? What happens when we force the human into this story as the primary agent and doer? Do we end up with our polluted cities and plastic mountains of trash? Alongside the indigenous origin myths we will tell a myth of the end of things -- an apocalyptic myth of fast-paced life ending human existence in a sea of plastic.
TRITHA SINHA
Originally from Kolkata, Tritha Sinha is a vocalist and composer based between New Delhi and Paris. Trained in North Indian classical music since 25 years, Tritha's independent music projects include Indo-French ethno-rock band - Tritha Electric; Indian women artists collective for human rights - SPACE; and a sound healing project - Tritha & Martin. Performed over 16 countries, Tritha's work has been highlighted by BBC, Tehelka, Marie Claire, ARTE and Canal Plus. She also represented India at the music residency Onebeat 2016 in USA featuring 25 socially engaged musicians across the world among other music festivals with her bands. She has 3 studio albums out - “PaGLi”, her debut solo album, “Raagas in Paris” with Tritha Electric and “Elements d’existence” with Tritha & Martin. She is working now on her next big opus - "Pachamama' dedicated to Mother Earth
Tritha is a music teacher by day and conducts Music Meditation and Sound Therapy workshops. Her work is listed on her website : www.tritha.com
Tritha believes her music is to heal or provoke and is determined that music, when used intelligently and with pure intentions, can bring about social change and awareness.
FAZAL RASHID
Fazal Rashid grew up in the highlands of central and south India. He studied History in college in Maine (US) and being a lover of books and literature, went on to work as an assistant editor at Penguin Random House in New Delhi. In 2015, he joined Edible Routes, an organization in New Delhi that makes kitchen gardens and trains people in urban farming. In 2017, he spent time working at Aranya permaculture farm and helped organize the bi-annual International Permaculture Convergence near Hyderabad, the 1st ever in India. Currently he looks after land projects and nursery for Edible Routes and engages in workshops and awareness programmes in schools and urban spaces related to gardening and plastic. Alongside, he has been dabbling in Dastangoi, a traditional Urdu storytelling form, for the last few years in New Delhi.
#LiveFromKalga
Shubhangi Joshi
13 Oct | 5pm
Having extensively performed across the US and India, Shubhangi Joshi’s music cuts across geographies, appealing to music lovers beyond borders. A flag bearer of Indian independent music going global, Joshi’s contemporary sound got her picked to be amongst 15 musicians across the world (Spain, South Africa, Armenia, Russia, UK and more) for a six week music mentorship residency ‘ISINA’ in Los Angeles, USA in November 2017, where she was mentored by Grammy-winning industry legends such as Kenny G, Walter Afanasieff, Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds and more.
She was also invited to be part of a two week South Asian-German Music Residency in September 2017 (https://www.facebook.com/samuresidency/) held in Chennai, India where she worked with musicians from Germany, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Afghanistan.
An empanelled artist by the ICCR (Indian Council of Cultural Relations) she was invited to represent India on a 4 city band performance tour of Bhutan from 25th-30th January 2018, sponsored by the Government of India and Bhutan, to celebrate 50 years of successful diplomatic relations between the two nations. (https://www.indianembassythimphu.bt/event.php?id=254)
Having performed in Los Angeles, Nashville, Philadelphia, New Jersey at iconic venues such as The Belasco Theater, The Baked Potato Jazz Club, Sofar Sounds Los Angeles and more, and across India, Joshi loves experimenting with topics to engage her audience. A self taught musician, her distinctive sound has garnered positive press from leading music magazines and national dailies.
Having collaborated with musicians from over 20 nations across Europe, USA and South Asia, she is inspired and influenced by a wide variety of genres, from flamenco, to Indian folk and loves collaborating with artistes from varying backgrounds
She is currently working on her full length studio album, along with her band, due to be released in Summer 2018.
#LiveFromKalga
DJ Urine and Abhi Singh
12 Oct | 5pm
"DJ Urine is a sculptor and sound artist with a great passion for his work.
After seeing many performances that rely on computerised sound manipulation, it is extremely refreshing to see such a hands on approach.
instead of cutting and pasting snippets of audio together on a laptop, Dj Urine (french anagram for Ruine, Nuire & Réuni) reaches for the superglue and creates literal sound collages from fragments of vinyl records.
These are assembled in a variety of ways, from the pizza slice method to fine mosaics. and played on up to 1 to 7 phonograph simultaneously, to build up rhythms, loops and textures out of many different musical genres.
That whole process is executed in a thoughtful and imaginative way, and with a sense of humour.
DJ Urine creates finely crafted noise with an energy that is ever present in the results."