PEERS Student Residency 2006

As a forum that aims to actively push the envelope of contemporary art practice mediated through practices that foreground qualities of experimentation, invention, research and critical debate, KHOJ positions PEERS as a model for practice as research within the ambit of the visual arts. The PEERS Program hopes to create a regular forum for experimentation, development, and critique within an alternative educational framework.

KHOJ provides an opportunity for a diverse group of artists to test their work within a setting that is part public, part private. The Residency practices an investigative approach that is more open-ended and enigmatic. It celebrates a diverse scene of artists all responding in different ways to each other and to the site/building. This rather more speculative approach to the production of art results in a distinct educational experience which, foregrounds improvisation, reworking, trying out alternatives, and allowing room for mistakes.

Beginning with Atul Mahajan (Baroda), whose interactive works are incomplete without the viewer's participation..., Atanu Pramanik (Santiniketan) who trained as a Printmaker but has begun moving into the realm of installation and mixed media, Lalit Bhartiya (Delhi) a sculptor from Jamia Millia Islamia, who works with metal rods, twisted into ribbed human forms..., Surabhi Saraf (Ahmedabad) ...a painter whose background in classical Hindustani music and kathak led naturally into audio-video installation works with a strong sense of performance...and Thara Thomas (Bangalore) whose interest of the shifting boundary between public and private... has led into an exploration of the relevance of art in public spaces, PEERS 2007 brought together a diverse group of students from across the country onto a common platform that worked to provide an opportunity for open knowledge sharing within the group and the community.