Peers: The Student Residency

 

Supported by the IFA (India Foundation for the Arts), in 2003, KHOJ began Peers, an annual students residency. Peers brings together 5 recent graduates from art/ architecture/ design institutions from all over India, in a residency programme at the Delhi studios of KHOJ.

 

For four weeks, these young artists shed the expectations and rigidity of a structured curriculum, working together in a discursive space that stresses the role of free experimentation and risk-taking in art practice.

 

Artists are provided with shared accommodation at the KHOJ Hostel and a studio each at the KHOJ studios. Return airfare/trainfare and a modest honorarium to cover food, local transportation and material costs is provided for each artist.

 

Khoj also provides digital laboratories, extensive research archives and the opportunity to engage with a larger artists’ community, some of whom participate in a mentor’s role during the residency. Visits to artists’ studios, gallery exhibitions and other events in Delhi are organized during the course of the residency. Working in Khoj in Khirki village in south Delhi, the Peers artists are encouraged to move out of the physical environs of the studios and explore the area and its community.  The critic/ theorist- in residence is expected to actively engage with the practitioners and work on a well-research paper that contextualizes and critically examines the Peers projects.

 

The residency culminates with an ‘Open Studio Day’ where the larger artists’ community and the general public are invited to view the Peers projects and interact with the artists.

 

Peers is held for 4 weeks from mid-May to mid-June with 5 art practitioners and one art theorist/ critic. Studio space, shared accommodation in the KHOJ Hostel, return travel fare and a modest stipend are provided to each participant.

 

Participants are invited through an open call for applications, the last date for which is usually end- February/ early March. 

 

PEERS: Student Residency Archive