¶ Artist Bios
Meena Vari currently holds the position of Dean – Contemporary Art and Curatorial practice at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. Since 2002, Ms. Vari is working at Srishti developing, organizing events and projects in close association with faculty members, visiting artists and students. She is also coordinating the activities of the Center for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA) and work closely with the academic leaders to push the practice and study of Experimental Media arts both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
She received Fulbright Scholarship to do a course in Arts Management from the University of New Orleans, USA and was also invited by Visiting Arts, UK for a meeting of cultural directors from India. The focus for both the opportunities was to study and explore the possibilities of how to develop and build participation in the arts.
She studied Political Science and Education from New Delhi before beginning her professional career in Arts with Attakkalari Center for Movement Arts based in Kerala and Bangalore until 2001.
She is currently interested in curatorial practice as a form of experience, cognition and knowledge making. Her projects include ‘Notes on the (dis) appearance of the real’ in New Delhi, ‘Material Texts’ in Kochi, Kerala and ‘Metamorphosis’ in USA.
Ayisha Abraham lives and works in Bangalore, as an installation artist and short filmmaker. Ayisha Abraham studied painting in India and the United States, before becoming an experimental filmmaker and installation artist. She works at the Srishti School of Art, Design, and Technology, as a visual arts consultant and is a member of the BAR1 (Bengaluru Artists Residency). She has used sound as a part of her installations, since 1994. Her work has been shown at numerous international exhibitions and festivals including Artists Space, Tribeca, New York (1992), Franklin Furnace, New York (1993), Japan Foundation, Tokyo, British Council, New Delhi and across the UK, Eicher Gallery New Delhi, Galleryske, Bangalore (2003), ARS Electronica, Linz (2005), Mostra Internacional de Cinema,Sao Paolo (2008), and the Serpentine Gallery, London (2008/2009), Kunst Museum, Bern (2007/8), Kashi Art Gallery, Kochi(2009), Tao Art Gallery, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo, Norway (2009) Mumbai, 2009, Samuha Artists collective(2010), Heart, Herning Museum of Contemporary Art in Herning, Denmark (2010 ), Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore, Coimbatore (2010), Caixa Forum, Barcelona (2010).
Abhishek Hazra is a visual artist based in Bangalore. His work explores the intersections between technology and culture through animated shorts and performance pieces that often integrate textual fragments drawn from real and fictional scenarios. He is also interested in the social history of scientific practices in colonial India. He has previously exhibited and performed at Science Gallery, Dublin, HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Casino Luxembourg Forum d’art Contemporain, Experiment Marathon Reykjavik, Reykjavik Art Museum and Kunstmuseum Bern. Abhishek was most recently an artist in residence at SymbioticA, the Centre for Excellence in Biological Arts, University of Western Australia, Perth. http://abhishekhazra.info
Yashas Shetty is an artist and educator based in Bangalore. He is currently an Artist in Residence and faculty at the Centre For Experimental Media Arts at Srishti in Bangalore and an artist in residence the National Centre For Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore. His practice investigates the space between various disciplines including installation, sound, software and biotechnology. The work he produces is situated between the arts and the sciences, creating situations of dialogue between scientists, artists and the larger community.He has conducted workshops and taught in colleges in India and abroad.In 2007, he helped start the Centre for Experimental Media Arts at Srishti. He is also the co-founder of the critically acclaimed art-science collective Hackteria. Yashas' work has been recognized in many different forums including most recently at Ars Electronica 2011. Links: artscienceblr.org and hackteria.org.
Murali Cheeroth has MFA (1995) and BFA (1992) from Kalabhavan, Shantiniketan, West Bengal. He lives and works in Bangalore. To quote the artist himself "....my working process is a kind of extraction system, that draws on tiny concerns about uber urbanization, frenzied globalization and the visual/virtual stimulation therein, and folds and unfolds them into another reality to simplify their characteristics and relationships in order to build a new visual experience that is clear and vivid".
Murali Cheeroth has exhibited in various significant shows across the globe in the last two decades of his art practice. Few amongst his shows are ‘Habitus’, Sumukha Art Gallery, Bangalore and Chennai (2010), ‘Unmarked’ - New Delhi (2009); ‘Mise – En—Scène’ solo show, Viart Gallery, New Delhi (2007), 10th Edition of Video Wednesday, curated by Jhony M L, Gallery Espace, April (2009), Emerging India, a group show of young contemporary artists, at The Henry Moore Gallery, Royal College of Art, London, (2007), Chicago Art Fair (2009); Passage to India-Part-II new Indian art from the Frank Cohen Collection in March, Wolverhampton. U K. (2009); The sun rises in the east, Contemporary art from India, Gallerie Christian Hosp, Triol, Austria, (2008)., S. H. Contemporary, Shangai (2008), Spectrum’ Abu Dhabi (2009), “Opening Borders/Opening Objects”, Department of Visual Arts, University of Western Ontario, (2011). He is also actively involved in theatre, has widely traveled and has taught art and design.http://muralicheeroth.com
diF (diFuSed beats) is an experimental sound and nu-Music project by Konrad Bayer and Ish Shehrawat. The project is involved around composing with recorded sounds, like that of the cities (Delhi/Munich/Mumbai) and other personal spaces, while augmenting and layering these 'recorded samples' with sound synthesis to create a sonic spectrum of the experience of inhabiting the city/personal space. Konrad Bayer and Ish are sound artists and composeres from Munich and Delhi respectively. Their Compositional works have been released under the 'sound reasons records' and they have performed live or Exhibited their works at | Fete de la Musiqe , Geneva | Art Basel, June 2010 , Basel | 1st habitat Summit at the ‘Indian Habitat Center’ | School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) | World Information City Conference, Bangalore | Khoj Studio's Noise Workshop | 1st international art tech media congress | SoundLAB - Edition V | Osian‘s Cinefan Asian Film Festival , 2009 Delhi | 12th and 13th Bharat Rang Mahautsav at NSD ( National School of Drama), Delhi | Action Field Kodra , Greece | 2nd IBSN festival, Delhi | Ignite, Festival of Contemporary Dance | F + F Schule für Kunst und Mediendesign, Zurich | Pompiduo, Paris (w/ Raqs Media Collective) | Project 88, Mumbai (w/ Zuleikha Chaudhari) |
Jasmeen Patheja is an artist with a focus on public and community arts,performance and photography.She is one of the founding members and faciltator of Blank Noise , a volunteer aka Action Heroes led community arts collective that triggers public dialogue on the issue of street sexual violence.
Her work is interventionist by nature as it directly confronts the fear based relationship women have with their cities. Blank Noise (http://blog.blanknoise.org) was initiated in 2003 as a response to personal experiences of street sexual intimidation, harassment, violence, 'teasing'. The collective was created as a final year art student project at the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology and has since then grown into a collective of Action Heroes from across cities and towns in India. Volunteers are both male and female and from across age groups. BN chapters have been formed in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Lucknow, Chandigarh. The collective has been committed to triggering public debate by collecting testimonials and dispersing them back in the public. Blank Noise intervenes in via public events and actions on the web and on the streets of various cities. The collective works with a range of media from facebook, twitter, blogger, street actions and 'action hero games', posters, t shirts, video installation, sound, stencils, text, live discussions. In October 2010 Jasmeen Patheja participated in Dislocate at Arts 3331 Tokyo where she facilitated workshops and live actions exploring the relationship of fear and the city with a focus on examining chikan i.e street sexual harassment in Japan. Jasmeen has participated in events and exhibitions at the Cornerhouse (Manchester), Akademie Schloss Solitude (Germany), Bronx Museum of Arts( NYC), Tasveer, India. She is the recipient the Ted India Fellowship (2009), Ashoka Innovators for the Public, Akademie Schloss Solitude Stuttgart (2007/2008).
Jasmeen is currrently collaborating with her grandmother Indri. The project is based on the interdependence of their relationship where her grandmother seeks to be an actor and Jasmeen a photographer/ film maker/ director. Jasmeen is based out of Bangalore and Kolkata.
Indu Antony was born into a culturally vibrant reality, Indu Antony decided to take up photography to express herself. She followed her parents dream to be a physician and then followed her own to be a visual artist. She has been always drawn to stories of people and places. She has been working with projects that have a strong social cause. Her ongoing project on the transgenders have helped them get job opportunities. From documenting landslides in Leh, chasing Naga sadhus at the Kumbh Mela, hearing stories of Kashmiri women, studying the faces of North Eastern people, she has travelled extensively.
Her exhibitions include "First Flights"(Delhi) 2009, "Body Politics" (Bangalore) 2010, "Social Mashup" (Hyderabad) 2010,"Beauty in the Blur" (Bangalore) 2011. My website: http://induantony.com
Prayas Abhinav lives in Bangalore, India. Presently he teaches at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology and is a researcher at the Center for Experimental Media Arts (CEMA). He has taught in the past at Dutch Art Institute (DAI) and Center for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT).
He has been supported by fellowships by Openspace India (2009), TED (2009), Center for Media Studies (CMS) (2006), Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) (2006), Sarai/CSDS (2005). He has presented his projects and proposals in the last few years at Periferry, Guwahati (2010), Exit Art, New York (2010), Futuresonic, Manchester (2009), Wintercamp, Amsterdam (2009), 48c: Public Art Ecology (2008), Khoj (2008), Urban Climate Camp, ISEA (2008), Sensory Urbanism, Glasgow (2008), First Monday, Chicago (2006), The Paris Accord (2006) and PSBT/Prasar Bharti (2006).
He has also participated in the exhibitions Myth ←→ Reality (2011) at The Guild, Mumbai, Continuum Transfunctioner (2010) at exhibit 320 in Delhi, Contested Space - Incursions (2010) at Gallery Seven Arts in Delhi and Astonishment of Being (2009) at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture in Kolkatta (2009). Web: http://prayas.in
