Six Degrees of Separation: overview

CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF KHOJ
KHOJ International Artist’s Association in collaboration with the Anant Art Gallery invite you to the preview of 'Six Degrees of Separation:Chaos, Congruence & Collaboration in South Asia' 'Six Degrees of Separation' refers to the notion that, every person on the planet is separated from everyone else by a chain of about six people.
While the idea of a shrinking world of ever-increasing connectedness seems to be an idiom of the globalised world, it assumes a somewhat different complexion to artists in South Asia whose socio politico realities
and identities are a complex mix of congruence and chaos. This exhibition is a celebration of the dynamic network of relationships, collaborations and exchanges that KHOJ has developed and facilitated between artists in the region over the past 10 years.
Exhibition Opens: Friday 5 September 2008, 6:30 pm onwards.
Venue: Anant Art Gallery F 213 - B, Lado Sarai, New Delhi
Tel: +91-11-41554775, M: +91-9818034940, 91-1129522060

Collaborations:
Aar-paar: (2000-2004)
A collaborative project between artists Shilpa Gupta in Mumbai and Huma Mulji in Karachi

Odd Space: by Faisal Anwar, Lahore/Toronto.This is a real time, site-specific installation that will select a space within exhibitions organized by VASL in Karachi and BRITTO in Dhaka in an attempt to show how human behavior is modified by interactions with others.

Monitor: A selection of experimental film and video from the South Asian Diaspora curated by the South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC), Toronto, Canada.The screenings will run continuously for the duration of the exhibition. SAVAC is an artist-run, nonprofit organization committed to the development of contemporary visual art. The organization recognizes the importance of the South Asian Diaspora to the discourse and practice of cultural development in the region and around the world.

Exhibition Program:
• The exhibition will be on view from the 6th-20th of September. Open Sundays
• Talk and Lecture Program: 8th of September @ the Anant Art Gallery, Lado Sarai, 7:00 pm onwards.
Visual presentation: The War We Forgot: A Behind the Scenes Look at Archiving and Curating one of the Most Significant Conflicts in the Subcontinent, by the renowned photographer/ activist Shahidul Alam. In 1989, Alam founded Drik, a Dhakabased journalists’ collective formed to support majority world reporters and photographers. In 1998, he also established Pathshala,the South Asian Institute of Photography, and Chobi Mela, the first festival of photography in Asia. Besides serving on the jury of numerous competitions including the World Press Photo Awards, Alam has also taught at the U.K.’s Sunderland University and UCLA in the USA.

Visual presentation: Imaging Dislocations. A Talk by renowned artist Nilima Sheikh, will address the rewards and challenges of representing a subject as fraught and complicated as partition. Since completing her MFA at Baroda in 1971, Sheikh has been exhibited around the world for a diverse body of work ranging from miniatures to stage sets. Her recent practice explores ways to examine the pain that rupture and violence have caused to the subcontinent since the events of 1947, and have branded modern South Asian identity and self. Her paintings address issues raised by texts as diverse as Urvashi Butalia's work on the partition and the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali on Kashmir.

Release of South Asia Journal for Culture (Vol. 1 2007), established by Sasanka Perera, who teaches Sociology at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and is conceived as a regional forum for disseminating and debating ideas on 'culture' broadly defined across geographic and national boundaries of South Asia and beyond. The journal is co-published by the Colombo Institute for the Advanced Study of Society and Culture and THEERTHA International Artists Collective and supported by KHOJ.
Curated by: Pooja Sood