Ripples

Artists from South Asia have been invited to participate in the Khoj workshops each year and have visited international workshops through out the world through the Triangle Network. Several of them were energized by the experience and expressed a desire to set up similar workshops in their countries. The idea was taken forward by committed artists who together with expertise provided by KHOJ and Triangle Arts Trust have set up similar workshop in their own countries.

KHOJ’s direction has been towards the empowerment of so called third world artists and their cross cultural bonding outside racial biases and for an exchange of flow of information along alternative lines. Over the past 7 years artists from Iran, Egypt, Cuba, Argentina, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan and several countries in Africa, have participated in our workshops and residencies. As a deliberate initial policy our core invitees have been from South Asia resulting in the development of the regional network.

The workshops have created a unique network of artists actively engaged in developing local and international exchanges. The activities of the Network can have a significant and lasting impact on the artist's works and their lives. They also help develop audiences and introduce them to work that they would not otherwise have the opportunity to see. The Open Days and exhibitions that flow from the workshops and residencies create a very active response from the pubic who attend these events in significant numbers, many not having been to an 'art' exhibition or event before. The Open Day at the Khoj Workshop in Mysore, for instance, attracted over 1000 people.

Khoj has worked consistently in developing the South Asian network, which has had a ripple effect in the region spawning several other projects. For example, Quddus Mirza, an artist from Lahore attended the KHOJ workshop in 1998 and has since been writing a quarterly column in Art India, the only contemporary art magazine in India. When sculptors in Bangladesh wanted to work in granite, an inaccessible material in Bangladesh, KHOJ facilitated a residency with the Jindal group in Karnataka; Shilpa Gupta from Mumbai and Huma Mulji from Karachi met at the KHOJ workshop in 1999 and subsequently organized Aar paar a public art project by Indian and Pakistani artist in the cities of Mumbai and Karachi. They are currently working on Aar Paar II.

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