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India/France – France at Kochi-Muziris Biennale after Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa

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seren-dipty-artsThe French Institute in India (Institut Français India), which is the culture, science and education service of the Embassy of France in India, recently participated in the Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF) held in Panaji, Goa from 15-22 December 2018. France presented works by acclaimed artists, engaging in dynamic dialogues on contemporary arts. Bénédicte Alliot, Director General of the Cité internationale des arts in Paris, participated in ‘Line of Flight’, a daylong symposium dedicated to artistic residencies across the world, bringing together professionals from diverse disciplines at one location.The exhibition, ‘My Color on Your Plate’, commissioned by renowned Indian artist Subodh Gupta, presented the works of two French artists. Daphné Le Sergent presented her project Geopolitics of oversight (Géopolitique de l’oubli) as a part of the exhibition commissioned by renowned Indian artist Subodh Gupta ‘My Color on Your Plate’. The project explores industrialisation and externalisation of memory in the era of post-digitization, imagining two retro-futuristic fictitious communities, the Sums and the Mays, where alphabets have been implemented to liberate the human memory from the complexities of written-visual codes, found on hieroglyphic symbols and characters, pictographs or ideographs. ‘Seeing the sea’ (Voir la mer) is a collection of 14 digital films (in colour, with sound) and framed colour photographs. For this work, accomplished in 2011, Sophie Calle took the residents of a very popular suburban area of Istanbul to see the Mediterranean Sea for the first time and photographed their faces before and after the sighting. ‘Seeing the sea’ (Voir la mer) was presented earlier in a rather unusual setting, the giant glowing billboards and screens of New York’s Times Square.

kochi-muzirisAt the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018 happening in Kerala from 12 December 2018 – 29 March 2019,France has returned for this edition in an enhanced capacity, with a wider scope of activities and exchanges.These are:1) Training of mediators of the biennale, with the support of École du Louvre (Louvre School)in Paris.(2) Season 6 – A reciprocal residency of six artists from École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de, Montpellier Contemporain – ESBAMA. (3) 4 artists are part of the official selection made by artist and curator of this edition of thebiennale Anita Dube: Bracha Ettinger, Tabita Rezaire, Mireille Kassar and BarthélémyToguo. (4) Agora on artistic studies in France – Two artists of Season 6 along with Barthélémy Toguo,Mireille Kassar and Alan Alexander talked about their experiences as students in French artschools, as well as the prospects of higher studies in arts in France. The event was held at the Biennale Pavilion on 18 December 2018. (5) Artistic Choose France Tour – A special art education tour will be organised in Kochi toinform Indian students of higher education opportunities in the fields of arts, design andarchitecture on 2nd February 2018.

Geopolitics of oversight – Daphné Le Sergent

Daphné Le Sergent presented her project Geopolitics of oversight (Géopolitique de l’oubli) as a part of the exhibition commissioned by renowned Indian artist Subodh Gupta ‘My Color on Your Plate’.

The project questions the class C of the vocabulary imagined by George Orwell in 1984, technical language, at the moment of data deluge. Through this project, she explores industrialisation and externalisation of memory in the era of post-digitization, imagining two retro-futuristic fictitious communities, the Sums and the Mays, where alphabets have been implemented to liberate the human memory from the complexities of written-visual codes, found on hieroglyphic symbols and characters, pictographs or ideographs.

Seeing the sea – Sophie Calle

One of the prominent figures of the contemporary art scene, French artist and photographer Sophie Calle presented ‘Seeing the sea’ (Voir la mer) as a part of the exhibition commissioned by renowned Indian artist Subodh Gupta ‘My Color on Your Plate’.

‘Seeing the sea’ (Voir la mer) is a collection of 14 digital films (in colour, with sound) and framed colour photographs. For this work, accomplished in 2011, Sophie Calle took the residents of a very popular suburban area of Istanbul to see the Mediterranean Sea for the first time and photographed their faces before and after the sighting. ‘Seeing the sea’ (Voir la mer) was presented earlier in a rather unusual setting, the giant glowing billboards and screens of New York’s world renowned Times Square.

Rahaab Allana, commissioner for the exhibition on vernacular photography ‘Common Ground: New Futures for Passing Images’, collaborated with STARS Archive (Studies in Tamil Archive and Society). STARS refers to the photographic archives of Zoé Headley who is associated with the French Institute in Pondicherry. The project aims to safeguard and promote photographs taken in the studios of Tamil Nadu between 1880s and 1980s.

The largest outreach program organized by the Serendipity Arts Foundation. Set over a period of eight days in December in the vibrant settings of Panaji, Goa, this is a multi-disciplinary arts event like no other. Curated by a panel of 14 eminent artists and institutional

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