Preview Date: December 14, 2022
Closing Date: May 15, 2023
Venue: Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts, Goa
Organised by: Ishara Art Foundation in partnership with Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts
Ishara Art Foundation in partnership with Sunaparanta Goa Centre For The Arts presents Growing Like A Tree: Sent A Letter, a curatorial debut by Bunu Dhungana and Sadia Marium Rupa.
The exhibition marks the third iteration of the show initially curated by artist Sohrab Hura at Ishara in 2021. It brings together new and previously presented works reflecting the complex and imbricated histories of South Asia and beyond. Comprising of photography, artist-books, texts, films, video and sound installations, the curation pushes the boundaries of contemporary image-making as modes of address that offer a changing map of interconnected practices in the region.
The title of the exhibition draws from Dayanita Singh’s work Sent A Letter (2007) that was exhibited as a citation in the first iteration of the show. Expanding on the idea that an unopened photo-book can enfold within it diaries, exhibitions and correspondences, Growing Like A Tree: Sent A Letter returns to this source to evoke the tactile act of composing letters. It gathers images and sounds as dispatches from artistic journeys across different contexts, highlighting the shared moments of nurture, growth, decay, pollination and memory-making.
The ensemble of artists and collectives in the exhibition includes Aishwarya Arumbakkam, Vinita Barretto, Uma Bista, Dolly Devi, Shaheen Dill-Riaz, Pooja Gurung & Bibhusan Basnet, Alana Hunt, Ipshita Maitra, Farah Mulla, Nida Mehboob, Jaisingh Nageswaran, Ali Monis Naqvi, Gaurang Naik, Sarker Protick, Sathish Kumar, The Packet, Priyadarshini Ravichandran, Rajee Samarasinghe, Suneil Sanzgiri, Sylvia Schedelbauer, Prasiit Sthapit, Maryam Tafakory, Avani Tanya and Zainab, along with a citation of Dayanita Singh’s Sent A Letter. With site-specific notations by Sohrab Hura, his role as a curator tunes out with the third iteration inviting new curatorial voices that proliferate the growing of the tree into a forest.
Photo: Film still of Sea of Vapors (2014) by Sylvia Schedelbauer
Exhibition History
Iteration 1: Growing Like A Tree | 20 January – 01 August 2021
Iteration 2: Growing Like A Tree: Static In The Air | 11 September – 09 December 2021
Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts was founded in 2009 as a not-for-profit, process-based arts foundation by Dipti and Dattaraj V. Salgaocar – today with the patronage of Isheta Salgaocar – with the vision to nurture, promote and encourage growth of the cultural ecosystem in the State of Goa and India at large. It was started with the aim to preserve the artistic and creative legacies of Goa, to encourage and promote innovative work in the visual arts, to serve as a bridge between the Goan art community and the national and international art communities. The Foundation has emerged as a premier cultural institution in India, and abroad that harnesses excellence in cultural research and production; nurtures collaborations with arts professionals from the entire spectrum of creative fields; builds creative knowledge and capacities through pedagogy and aims at enhancing community engagement and participation. Sunaparanta is a leading cultural body dedicated to building sustainable partnerships in the region, nation and globally to promote cultural innovation and to develop the creative industries.
For more information, please visit www.sgcfa.org
