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How to {gear up}

Suit up. Mask on. Sanitiser ready, gloves optional. 

We're all used to this drill now. But we remember days when gearing up meant long hours at installation sites; chai with electricians and technicians; poring over countless plans with curators; rooms bleeding into rooms; conversations over light fixtures and accessibility; deadlines, new deadlines, retired deadlines; madness and adrenaline; the ballad of the forgotten HD cables; "Someone steal that blue tack now!"; "Who took that pair of scissors?!"

We long to gear up for art.

As we stay socially distant, we glimpse into the secret world behind an art event. Through a series of conversations on the material world of art—floor plans and lighting, production and tech, we speak to our collaborators to understand how art exudes aura through presentation. Exploring what lies beneath the surface, we present a conversation by an international jury for the Serendipity Arles Grant, which unravels the processual aspect of grant-giving—deliberation and principles behind the selection of grantees.

And then, we return to our homes, to consider ways in which we can make small changes for the better—for our health, our world, and eco-system.

Gear up. It's been a minute.

 
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#serendipityconversations

As we increasingly rely on ourselves for sustenance, "how-to" videos, tutorials, and stories have gained prominence on the web. We extend the idea of care, sharing, and reliance that motivates these practices to the world of art, as we enter the minds, processes, and strategies used by curators, artists, and experts to bring their visions to life. Each week we approach a new "how-to": exploring the complexities of art through approachable, close-to-life conversations.

Flying High: The World of Aerial Rigging

A talk by Avishkar Tendle

A high-altitude Himalayan trek at the age of 10 back in 1991 was Avishkar Tendle’s first step into a life of adventure. Today, he is a well-respected Outdoor Educator and a trained professional with more than 20 years’ experience in Outdoor Sports and Adventure Rigging, and an intuitive grasp of how outdoor and adventure activities can engage and affect the human psyche. Forgoing a traditional education, Avishkar instead ensured that his passions turned into usable skill sets. He now holds qualifications in Himalayan Glacier Mountaineering from the National Outdoor Leadership School, USA; Mountaineering from the Directorate of Mountaineering and Adventure Sports, Manali; multiple specialized courses such as Rock Climbing, Solo Paragliding, and Ornithology; and is a certified Wilderness First Responder from Wilderness Medicine Institute, USA. He has also taught at the prestigious Voyageur Outward Bound School in Montana, USA – an international organization for Outdoor & Experiential Education. At Natura, Avishkar has taken his expertise with mountaineering equipment and techniques and adapted them to meet the needs of the live events and entertainment industry, among others. As a consequence of his professional training and expertise, Avishkar has a deep understanding of the need for safety-inherent procedures and is a strong proponent of stronger safety standards in the industry. As Managing Director at Natura, he is the driving force behind the approach to all things related to aerial rigging and a respected voice calling for greater safety in a still-unorganized industry. Avishkar has been a speaker on the subject of Rigging & Event Safety and has been invited to many conferences and Seminars – Indian Exhibitions Services Association (IESA), EEMAGINE, Palm Expo to name a few. Avishkar and his team have also been conducting workshops across the Nation on ‘safety procedures for working at height’ aimed at event Professionals and the Exhibition Industry in general.

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Tracing the journey from the inception of Natura to its present-day form, this session will lay out foundational precepts of aerial rigging such as, the contexts of its application across different types of performances and events; its deployment in different sites; key equipment and how they differ from tools used in rock climbing or stunts; and walk audiences through the process of planning an aerial rigging—steps needed to prepare the equipment and set-up, as well as safety precautions to be kept in mind. The session will conclude by discussing the role of latest technologies such as motion control, and the significance of aerial rigging in making events special and valuable, besides focusing on education and preparation for any untoward circumstances.

You can watch the discussion on Facebook

Light for Art & Light as Art

A talk by Linus Lopez and Lyle Lopez

Lyle and Linus Lopez are brothers and partners in the firm Lirio Lopez Electrical + Lighting Design Consultants in New Delhi, India. They share a passion for travel, music, literature and world cultures and seek to weave the learning and their experiences while building their team and designing their projects. Lighting for them is a collaborative, creative, experiential process. Their projects, in India and abroad, involve providing lighting solutions for a variety of typologies across the spectrum - hospitality, offices, entertainment, heritage, residential and commercial developments along with museums, art galleries and exhibitions that carry a signature brand of lighting design - innovative, but contextual, creative yet practical.

Lighting for art has always been special for them ever since their first experience lighting Picassos’s exhibitions in Delhi and Mumbai in 2001.

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Each year, for the last four years, we’ve been asked to light the Serendipity Arts Festival, an event that has us working with some amazing, intense, demanding (and occasionally irate) curators and artists. It always come down to the wire – with time, equipment, resources, and patience.

But in Goa, the festive ingredient is truly special – beyond and within the cornucopia of creative thoughts, actions and reactions is an elevation of mood like no other. There you stand or wander – empathetic, impressed, provoked or bewildered, or perhaps a culmination of all these reactions, to behold a series of venues that undergo a startling transformation – from 14th-century palaces, churches, erstwhile medical and management colleges and government offices – into extraordinary art spaces.

We’re happy to  dive into our toolbox of skills and share our experiences lighting different art venues across the country.

You can watch the discussion on Facebook

New Futures: Grant-making Practices for the Contemporary

A Conversation between the jury members Dayanita Singh, Devika Singh, Ravi Agarwal, and Tanzim Wahab

Dayanita Singh’s art uses photography to reflect and expand on the ways in which we relate to photographic images. Her recent works, drawn from her extensive photographic oeuvre, are a series of mobile museums that allow her images to be endlessly edited, sequenced, archived and displayed. Stemming from Singh’s interest in the archive, the museums present her photographs as interconnected bodies of work that are replete with both poetic and narrative possibilities. Publishing is also a significant part of the artist’s practice: in her books, often published without text, Singh extends her experiments on alternate forms of producing and viewing photographs.

Devika Singh is Curator, International Art at Tate Modern. Her writing has appeared widely in exhibition catalogues, magazines including frieze, Art Press and MARG and in the journals Art History, Modern Asian Studies, Journal of Art Historiography and Third Text. Singh was previously Smuts Research Fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies of the University of Cambridge and a fellow at the Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art, Paris. She curated exhibitions including ‘Planetary Planning’ (Dhaka Art Summit, 2018) and ‘Homelands: Art from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan’ (Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, 2019-20) and co-curated ‘Gedney in India’ (Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, CSMVS, Mumbai, 2017; Duke University, 2018).

Ravi Agarwal has an inter-disciplinary practice as an artist, environmental campaigner, writer and curator. His work explores key contemporary questions of ecology, society, urban space and capital through photographs, videos and installations. He has shown widely including at the Biennials of Havana (2019) Yinchuan (2018), Kochi (2016), Sharjah (2013), Documenta XI (2002), etc. He co-curated the Yamuna-Elbe project, Indo-German twin city public art and ecology project (2011), Embrace our Rivers – an Indo- European project in Chennai (2018), and was the photography curator for the Serendipity Arts Festival 2018 and 2019. His work is in several private and public collections, and he has edited and authored serval books and journals. Alongside Ravi is the founder director of the environmental NGO Toxics Link and recipient of the UN Award for Chemical Safety and the Ashoka Fellowship

Sam Stourdzé became director of the Rencontres d’Arles in 2014. Previously he was director of the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne and, from 2010 through 2014, editor-in-chief of ELSE magazine. A specialist in images, he researches the contexts of their production, distribution, and reception. For years he has studied the mechanisms at work in the circulation of images, with the relationships between photography, art, and film as his preferred field. He has been curator of numerous exhibitions and published several works, including Le Cliché-Verre de Corot à Man Ray; the Dorothea Lange and Tina Modotti retrospectives; Chaplin et les images; Fellini, la grande parade; Derrière le rideau: L’esthétique Photomaton and Paparazzi! Photographes, stars et artistes. In March 2020, he is appointed as head of the Académie de France-Villa Médicis in Rome, where he will take up his post in September 2020.

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This conversation between jury members Dayanita Singh, Devika Singh, Ravi Agarwal, and Tanzim Wahab for the Serendipity Arles Grant 2020 (SAG) will focus on redefining and better understanding grant-making approaches and also address queries with regard to applications for the SAG 2020. The discussion will be moderated by Sam Stourdzé.

You can watch the discussion on Facebook

The Backstage Theory: Building the Festival as We Know It

A conversations between Manoj Gopalani and Abhishek Mehta

Visionary and Entrepreneur, Manoj Gopalani is the Director at Seventy Seven Entertainment, one of the leading event management and experiential marketing companies in India. Besides co-founding 7ty7 with a vision of creating an integrated business and a self-sufficient eco-system he also co-founded Var Vadhu Wedding Management, now known as VV Weddings, Manoj’s other pursued interests include the world of film production, thus directing him to jointly set-up 22nd Avenue Talent Management, and a travel management company now called Ninety Nine Travels,
With a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Mumbai, Manoj changed his course to navigate into the artistic world of Event Management, Experiential Marketing and Brand Management.
For his efforts Manoj has received many accolades in his two-decade career.

Abhishek Mehta

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This session aims to throw light on the “homework” which goes behind planning, executing and managing a world class event or festival. At events, what we usually see is the final product. But there is a lot more to it than what meets the eye. This session, with the help of our experts, is all about informing the audience what they don’t get to see ‘behind the screens’, showcasing the most important part of any event worldwide: people and processes.

You can watch the discussion on Facebook

How to Live a Guilt-free, Zero-waste Life

A workshop conducted by Ruchi Jain, TARU Naturals

Ruchi Jain is CEO / Co-Founder of TARU Naturals, an organic fair-trade foods brand, which focuses on sourcing and creating a market for organically grown super foods (such as black rice, and turmeric) from 10,000 identified tribal and small scale farmer networks across India. The organisation buys the produce from small farmers, packages it and markets them under the TARU brand. While working with farmers, TARU operates under a three pronged model: climate resilient agriculture, organic farming training, and setting up supply chains with market intelligence, and clean tech value addition processing units that ensures fair-trade market-ready products for end consumers which are sourced directly from small scale farmers. TARU Naturals is incubated with Powered Accelerator, Unlimited India Fellowship, SPJMIR, Sri Sri Institute of Agriculture, Art of Living, Women Transforming India- Niti Aayog, IWSEN Program - Amani Institute, etc. TARU Naturals has been the recipient of several awards including, 15 Women Transforming India by Niti Aayog, 2020, GQ 50 Most Influential Young Indians, Conde Naste Homegrown Brand of the Year, SheUnltd Food Enterprise 2019, and Women Economic Forum Award, among others. TARU Naturals also presented at Caux Land Dialog Forum and Ruchi Jain was selected as part of Caux Emerging leaders Forum.

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Living a truly sustainable life while watching your carbon footprint is challenging.  It is particularly important at this point in time to conserve our natural resources and reduce waste.  Ruchi Jain will conduct a workshop with insightful DIY tips to give a holistic view on how to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Her workshop will cover:

  1. How to convert to zero waste  in your house. 

  2. How to grow a kitchen garden with the waste generated from kitchen.

  3. How to choose products keeping environmental concerns in mind.

You can watch the discussion on Facebook

 
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Behind the Scenes

& this is how we are made. Supported by false walls, levelled in place, held by one (or too many) depending on the curator’s taste. Extended by the riser, following the rider, we monitor our anxieties from the wings. We pitch our tent & gather our things. & this is how we are made, by the coastline, from our inventory we find a bright sign.

 
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P.S. Out of the Blue

Goodbyes are difficult! We’ve slowly and steadily reached the last week of the How To series! Wow!

We’ve realised that in these times of social distancing, we have come close to our digital family – see if you can find someone you know.  If not, you could also make a real time family tree.

But we saved some of our best finds across the internet for the last week. A movie quiz based on famous objects can only be matched by pointless pictures of pointer pointers.

Some may find the world wide web a pandora’s box of useless things, while some may learn to make the most of everything. It’s a place that lets you travel the world with the click of a mouse and even think of the value of a day  or watch the earth as a piece of art. But whatever it maybe, the internet remembers everything and is an honest place. And thus these wonderful newsletters will be here, till one day this page not found!

That’s it folks! GoodBye!

 

Reading and Resources Library

This week we select essays that surgically peel back layers to reveal the “making” of a moment in art. Dissecting the cross-disciplinary collaboration behind five public works of art; a deep-dive into the most dizzyingly hyper-sensorial documenta yet; a meditation on how art that proximates—individuals and bodies—will fare in the future; and a conversation with Seth Riskin on the confluence of perception, movement, technology that creates “Light Dance”.

Creative Construction: How Artists and Engineers Collaborate / SOM (Medium)

Installations Everywhere: Disorientation and Displacement in Jan Hoet’s documenta IX (1992) / Angela M. Bartholomew (OnCurating)

Essential Workings / Andrea Nitsche-Krupp (Open Space)

Q & A with Seth Riskin / Arts at MIT

 
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Follow us on Instagram!

 
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Serendipity Grants

Owing to the rapidly evolving global situation due to COVID-19, we will be revising the criteria for applications and timelines as part of our grant scheme. Please stay tuned for more information and further announcements. Thank you.


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