["","Murali Cheeroth (Bangalore, India) have a door or corridor to take a woman out Home \u2013 Other spaces to the open space. Still every woman yearns for a way out from the virtual confines of the Duration: 5:20 mins kitchen where every object is a virtual shackle. A space that is cleaned more frequently than A kitchen is a cosmos that we often fail to other spaces, it still remains stained \u2013 from understand, which is not even identified as a cooking to dishwashing to the umpteen types space. A kitchen has a feminist geography that of wastes thrown here and there. However, we often fail to realize. Even if it is identified, in most of the cases it is the most badly it is identified as the \u2018other space\u2019, which has designed space, which again underscores the roots in the gender construction of the male male-hegemonic idea that a kitchen is just a dominated world. But in reality it is an integral space that should remain within the veil. My space that links home and other spaces. Simul- experience has taught me that the kitchen is taneously, it is the space often invaded by the the ultimate space to trace other spaces that male hegemony. However, a kitchen does not remain unmarked. It is the window to the outer space of life.","Priti Vadakkath (Kochi, India) symbolically keeps the woman within the The Good Wife\u2019s Guide Grind confines of the four walls of domesticity. Duration: 7 mins Mouths don\u2019t get fed, clothes washed and vessels cleaned all on it\u2019s own, someone has to Collaborators: do it. It is a daily grind. My aim was to spotlight, Shamila Ashkar and Rukkiya Umma validate and bring to public view this sisyphean I was keen to explore the duality that exists task of domesticity, passed on from one within the kitchen space. A space that allows generation to the next. Not by apotheosising for nourishment and nurture and is the anchor that keeps the home rooted together. While it as the ultimate act of femininity, but by at the same time it is a room that literally and portraying it as is- a powerful everyday undertaking of physical labour, borne out of love.","Babu Eshwar Prasad seemed weary about the repetitive, unyielding routines of the everyday and how (Bangalore\/Delhi, India) they seemed to mark both time and space. As I recorded her audio, she opened up Eat With Your Eyes slowly about the things that she loved. Baking emerged as the other to cooking. She shared Duration: 5:16 mins images of her spectacularly decorated \u2018art cakes\u2019 that she used to make on an order Collaborator: basis. I thought it would be fitting to end Jeena Biju with these beautiful creations as they were a testimony to her own creative process and the I was paired with Jeena Biju \u2013 as part of this joy she experienced in making them. five day public participatory art project where The collaboration itself was interesting in an artist engaged with a local resident in terms of what it means to enter into someone\u2019s her kitchen. The conversations opened up home and also probe into their relationship slowly as Jeena admitted she didn\u2019t really care with cooking. So many dynamics involved in for cooking. Frames from Jeanne Dielman\u2026 asking this seemingly \u2018simple question\u2019. The (Chantal Akerman\u2019s opus) as well as the more sharing and the withholding were both part of recent The Great Indian Kitchen came to me it. The short film is a homage to as Jeena spoke of the everyday drudgery and Jeena\u2019s grandmother Anna Baby Joseph who the invisible labour that she performed. The sadly passed away in 2021 from COVID. Even story had been told before in both factual and as she doesn\u2019t finally figure in the film itself, cinematic renditions. She didn\u2019t respond to any the love and memories Jeena shared with her of familiar prompts I placed before her \u2013 of suffused the whole process. cooking for the camera or sharing recipes. She","","","Sanchayan Ghosh other\u2019s practice and Sanchayan shared the basic intention of his visit to the kitchen of Viji (Santiniketan\/Kolkata, India) and it was also informed that the process of Crab Roast Story physical meeting will be recorded for a film Duration: 8:19 mins in future. During the conversation Sanchayan also came to know Viji\u2019s interest to cook Crab Collaborator: roast curry as her signature dish for her own Viji Ramesh Youtube channel. Facilitated by Taos and curated by Tanya Abraham this present short time based During the last six days of the physical meeting in Viji\u2019s kitchen Sanchayan during the process participatory process was initiated between of multiple conversation came to know about Viji Ramesh a homemaker in Fort Cochin and Viji\u2019s fascination for the colour pink and how she has transformed her room into a pink Sanchayan Ghosh a visual artist pedagogue room. Viji also shared how the aroma of her from Santiniketan. Any form of participatory cooking is appreciated by her neighbours and art process involves a dialogic engagement often she shares food that she cooks for her of multiple participants. There is an attempt family with her neighbours. During the course of these conversations Sanchayan proposed to take process beyond the hegemony of the idea of hosting a Crab Curry party and Viji individual authorship and transform it into a readily agreed to work towards sharing the collaboration of making and learning together. process to a larger group of friends. This led to In this respect the process is further expanded the installation of the Pink room by transforming her pink colored drawing room towards the making of a film where the presence of the camera become an integral into a LED lit space. Viji\u2019s interest in listening to Malayalam film songs and the whole aspiration part of the process and become an active to be present in public domain led to a sceno- component beyond the traditional role of a graphic dialogue together with the help of Viji\u2019s documentary. Viji Ramesh is not only a daughter and son. Viji\u2019s husband R Ramesh homemaker but also a professional chef in also took an active role in in assisting her in the office of Kochi Biennale in Fort Cochin. Viji aspires to open her own you tube channel of cooking food for twenty people. cooking and that she has a special interest in documenting her process of cooking for public The film is a result of a spontaneous following of Viji\u2019s process of cooking and also a sharing. Sanchayan Ghosh is also a visual artist who engages with pedagogy as a tool conscious choreographed film shooting where to initiate individual and collective spaces of Viji performed in front of the camera sharing making and learning together. The participa- her life, her tools and statements. In her own tory process was initiated through an online offline process where multiple online meetings words, \u201cI love to cook\u2026I love to serve food\u2026but were initiated between Viji and Sanchayan to I am not a servant\u201d. This film is an extension know each other\u2019s interest before the physical meeting of working together for six days in of the multilayered conversation between Viji Ramesh and Sanchayan Ghosh and reflect Viji\u2019s kitchen in Kochin. the aspiration of Viji Ramesh to move beyond Initially the process of interaction started of her role of a homemaker to an independent with this verbal interaction of knowing each individual.","Moutushi Chakraborty greater celebration of life. The Woman, who toils in the Kitchen, to provide this comfort (Kolkata, India) across generations, though remains a silent and unacknowledged presence. She is like Sugar\u00a0\/\u00a0Pa\u00f1casara Sugar \u2013 her presence enriches lives, and her absence makes it bland, as she herself remains Duration: 5:12 mins obscure. In recognition of these silent presences like Manju Salih, the Homemaker I Collaborator: came to know in Kochi, a Sugar Tongue Manju Salih (sculpture made of sugar and food color) was created in her kitchen. As the sugar form Other than being a source of nourishment, dissolved into water again, the mortal Food also has deeper connotations that form impermanence of life is evoked. In this tran- the cultural identity of inherited knowledges, sient play of birth, toil and death - all for food towards sustenance and wellbeing. It holds and comfort, miniscule appreciations are all within it, memories of flavour and fragrance that matters perhaps. Drawing Manju\u2019s palms that connects us across generations, which is on her Kitchen wall, where she toils day and why rituals across the world positions food as night, was my way of recognising and a symbolic presence. As in birth - so in death, memorializing this labour of love. food becomes a medium which connects one to ancestral lineages, a continuity in the","","","Lekha Narayanan (Kochi, India) in-law with children on small outings to the The Jasmine in the Garden seafront or park. These women do not expect the sharing of Duration: 6:46 mins work from the men in their lives but from each other. Women who are also in the same Collaborators: situation as themselves. And this being in one Seena Shaheer, Sana Shihab, Rinsi Shifas and house also provides the necessary company, Safna Shihad conversation and support which gives relief to the task of bringing up children and managing My collaborator in this art project is Seena a house. Shaheer. She lives in Mattancheri with her There is a hierarchy in managing the work. husband,a construction worker , three sons Usually cooking is done by Seena and Sana, and their families in a rented house which the eldest daughter in law while Rinsi and has rooms just enough for them. Shihab and Safna does the supporting work of cutting, Shihad work cutting fish and Shifas is a house grating ,washing vessels etc. Individual desires painter.Sana is married to the eldest son are also not indulged in the home. Nothing is Shihab, and they have two children Zaman and cooked for one or two persons. Whatever is Syha. Rinsi is married to the second son Shifas cooked in the house is cooked for everyone. and have two children Shenza and Samra.The Seena also steps in where ever needed ,in youngest son Shihad married Safna and their deciding what is to be cooked, lending a hand, child is called Zakia. keeping aside food for each one, watching The kitchen in this home has four women in the small children or settling small quarrels it. This film is about how Seena has created between children. a space within this house where the three In this society at this point of time, work is val- young co-sisters share the work and support ued only if it earns money. The work that the each other. The kitchen in the presence of women do, the care, creativity and time they these women seems a very positive space. give to weave this home is not given enough While working, they move around with an easy value. It is invisible, routine , made up of small friendship, one bringing out a vessel, the other actions of care which continue throughout cutting the fruit, while a third rinses and wipes the day. the vessel to keep the cooked food. They One of the activities I had done at the house observe what one may need and are quick to was to sit together with Seena and the provide it to hand. The kitchen, the children daughters in law to create patterns and and the house with all its work is maybe easier texures. Mostly this was done with ready made and manageable because of their stencils and vegetables cut outs.I also took togetherness. So even if one feels unwell or their palm prints and palm outlines and later goes to meet her family, the others will step cut out each person\u2019s pattern in the shape of in and make the meals, take care of the child\/ their hands. This was with the desire to give a children etc. Usually, they work together. If one value to their work, to the many chores that cleans upstairs, the others manage downstairs. take up their day. The women put up the hand While they go out as single families; they also cut outs in the kitchen articulating the invisible go out together, mother-in-law and daughters- and visible nature of their work.","Justin Ponmany (Mumbai, India) Blinking and blink rates pair with muteness and \u201cAnd I will give you a new thoughts which flow alongside water and the heart,and a new spirit I will flow of time, indistinguishable as to whether it put within you.\u201d is slow or rapid. Duration: 8:51 mins Tanya proposes to lean on to the idea of \u2018phenomenology\u2019, I gather. Diverse as the Collaborator: domain might seem, it is the aspect of Preea Mathai knowledge assimilated by the \u2018lived experience\u2019 of human consciousness, which feeds off The general premise of this curatorial project \u2018Umvelt\u2019, the environment; must be her starting aims to be that of an exploration into the point, I imagine. binary of the sexes and associated stereotypes. The work hopes to offer psychological insight The work is therefore an examination into into a homemaker\u2019s life harking back eight \u2018situatedness\u2019, the notion that our own generations, who have plied the same kitchen experiences (historically, culturally, familially in this particular instance. and personally) dramatically shape the way we interpret and respond to the world around us, I have drawn reference to two paintings by the and it relies on epoch\u00e9, i.e., the bracketing out Dutch artist, Johannes Vermeer, who depicted of all preconceptions, assumptions and a priori domestic scenes and interior life\u2026\u2026 and bared ideas that might intervene with immediate some affinity to the Japanese director, Yasujiro perception; which may be construed to be in Ozu. The trope of a left and right eye blinking line with methodical doubt. alternation at the beginning paves the way for the rest of the video, giving away my general Preea\u2019s own life and thoughts, is imagined here distrust of monocular lens readings, possibly as a continued embodiment of generations encouraging a calibration to adjudge a visual. prior and beyond, and is an amalgamation of many voices thus in space and in time.","","","","8 Muriel Moreau (Saou, France) intimacy, through the metaphorical figure of a Diary of a WomanTree tree stump, coated with beeswax used in the traditional manufacture of candles, an object Etching, Wood, Wax that was once commonplace but also religious, its flame evoking the soul, light and knowledge. Inspired and fascinated by the textile tradition The presence of the wax connects us to our in India, this piece is a succession of strokes in origins, our history and our beliefs. The red is the image of embroidery or weaving, typically there to convey a sense of life and strength. feminine activities linked to life and destiny. With the same patience and preciousness as Diary of a Woman Tree is a daily introspection the women weavers, I enter into a similar, of my thoughts, but also of the internal matter meditative creative process, thus revealing a of the tree. I embody myself through the image palpable time and our presence in the world. of her trunk to describe daily the elusiveness Starting from the heart, I have shared my of her feelings.","","","","Vivek Vilasini (Bangalore, India) Between One Shore and Several Others, \u201cThinking Man after Auguste Rodin\u201d Archival Print on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag, 2011 41 x 61.5 inches 9","","Home away from Home, Mario D\u2019Souza","","","Home away from Home, Mario D\u2019Souza","","","SPECIAL THANKS TO Julie & Cecil Jose\u0003 Ajit R Menon Saleeh S\u0003 Ashkar PM \u0003Shifas TS\u0003 Anish Akbar\u0003 Rinshad Azeez Jagadeesh Kumar\u0003 Sara Mamen Divya Joseph","CURATOR Tanya Abraham ASSISTANT CURATOR Rhea Moras DESIGN TEAM Rhea Moras Atul Bejoy Leonal Sabu Jeanne Elizabeth Arya Menon Gopika Kannan Namita Maria Joseph Madhura Dharmadhikari CAMERA CREW Atul Bejoy Leonal Sabu ARTIST ASSISTANTS Rosmia Xavier Anusha Vinog Savio Joseph Divyanjaly A Ashwin AC Arya Venu Stephin TS",""]
Search
