Serendipity Arts Residency 2024

OPEN STUDIO

The Open Studio event marks the culmination of the three-month-long Serendipity Arts Residency programme, during which our talented artists have been hard at work. The event is not just about presenting finished projects; it’s a celebration of creative exploration, with our residents displaying their works-in-progress.

*Please note that there will be two timed performances at 7 PM and 7:30 PM.

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*You need not register for the performances in this schedule but do please register for the workshops as we have limited capacity.

KEY INFORMATION

Date: 13.08.2024

Time: 6 pm – 10 pm*

Venue: C-340, Defence Colony, New Delhi

*Please note that there will two timed performances at 7PM and 7:30 PM.

Residency Duration: May 15, 2024 – August 16, 2024

Location: Serendipity Arts Foundation,C-340, Defence Colony, New Delhi, 110024

ABOUT

Serendipity Arts Foundation is delighted to announce the OPEN CALL for Serendipity Arts Residency 2024, an annual three-month artist residency based in New Delhi. We invite applications from emerging artists working across visual arts, lens-based and new media practices, text, sound, and other innovative media.

Now in its seventh edition, the Residency seeks to provide its residents with space and resources to develop their practice, work on a new project, and interact with the broader art community in New Delhi.

In the course of the three months, the residents will participate in a line-up of peer-to-peer conversations, critique sessions, artist talks and presentations, performances, masterclasses, workshops, gallery and studio visits programmed by the Foundation. Alongside, they will be required to conceptualise and produce a new work. The Residency will conclude with a showcase in an open studio format, which could include exhibitions, performances, explorations, and/or WIP presentations.

INTAKE

5 Artists-in-Residence and & 1 Writer-in-Residence

FACILITIES

Residents will be provided furnished accommodation and access to a studio space in New Delhi. All six participants will be entitled to an allowance (which will include any and all expenditure on meals) and the five Artists-in-Residence will receive a production grant to cover purchase of material, implements, additional technical support as well as support for hiring musician/script writer/costume/set, etc towards the outcome of the Residency. The Writer-in-Residence will be entitled to a fee for producing texts engaging with the process and outcome(s) of the Residency.

The Foundation will advise the residents on the implementation of their projects, provide technical infrastructure, and build publicity for events organised around the Residency. It will also help residents contact curators, artists, critics, gallerists, workshop facilitators, etc., as per requirement. The Residency acts as a platform for artists to build networks and interact with possible mentors and collaborators within the art world.

These programmes are designed to give the participating artists a greater awareness of their own art practice and exposure to other mediums, as well as the wherewithal to make the connections and build the networks required for the expansion of their practice. Each artist will be encouraged to share their work with their peers and the Programmer-in-Residence.

The Writer-in-Residence documents and contextualises the Residency, and helps put together a show for the Open Studio. The resident artists will have the opportunity to regularly engage with them to discuss their practice, conceptual preoccupations, and specific details pertaining to their works for the Residency. This individual will also chronicle the Residency through a podcast, regular blog posts, or any other format of their choice.

Writer-in-Residence

Selection Process

The Writer-in-Residence will be selected by the Jury via this Open Call.

Scope

The Writer-in-Residence will be required to chronicle the Residency through a podcast, regular blog posts, or other material that might drive public engagement with the Residency, between May and August. They are free to choose any format that might serve this purpose.
They will be required to examine the projects conceived during the Residency through a critical lens, submit an essay on the same, along with all necessary exhibition texts for the Open Studio.
In order to hone their writing practice, they may pitch their own creative project as long as it is in some dialogue with the works being produced by the Artists-in-Residence. The format for this remains open and flexible and might culminate in a small publication (fiction or non-fiction) or any other kind of intervention in the form of text.
They will curate the outcome of the Residency for the Open Studio.

Eligibility

The Writer-in-Residence should be an Indian national residing in India.
The applicant must not be more than 35 years of age.
The applicant must have at least 3 years of practical experience in art curation, practice, research, and/or critical writing in the field of arts and culture.
The applicant must not have been part of a residency in the last one year.

Application Process

A completed application form which will include the following, beyond contact information and educational qualifications:

An updated CV (not more than 3 pages long)
Short bio (not more than 150 words)
A writing sample of not more than 1500 words
A Statement of Intent of not more than 500 words

Please note that incomplete application forms will be automatically disqualified. We urge you to go through the form closely and ensure that you’ve uploaded your CV, bio, writing sample, and Statement of Intent.

Artists-in-Residence

Selection Process

The five Artists-in-Residence will be selected by the Jury via this Open Call.

Eligibility

The Residency is open to Indian nationals residing in India.
Applicants must not be more than 35 years of age at the time of submission.

Application Process

A completed application form which will include the following, beyond contact information and educational qualifications:

An updated CV (not more than 3 pages long)
Short bio (not more than 150 words)
A Statement of Intent or Project Proposal (in not more than 500 words). This may explain why the applicant wishes to attend the Residency, what they would like to do while in residence, and how the experience is likely to contribute to their present practice and/or project.
A short portfolio of the applicant’s creative practice. This may consist of:

artwork
videos, sound files (embedded as open links)
photographs or other documentation of previous works
a combination of the above where the total no. of items submitted is no more than five

Please note that incomplete application forms will be automatically disqualified. We urge you to go through the form closely and ensure that you’ve uploaded your CV, bio, Project Proposal, and portfolio.

Terms and Conditions

Applicants must not be more then 35 years of age at the time of submission.
The Residency is open only to Indian Citizens residing in the country at least over the past 2 years.
Applicants must not have attended a residency in the past 1 year.
Selected residents will be announced by May. Selections will be undertaken by an external panel of jury appointed by Serendipity Arts.
Applications by immediate family members of Serendipity Arts employees will not be considered.

Timeline

Deadline to Apply: April 15 (11:59 PM IST)

Commencement of Residency: May 15

Open Studio: August 16

Jury

Gautam Pemmaraju is a Mumbai based writer, researcher & filmmaker who works in the areas of history, literature and art. With special interests in early 20th century anti-colonialism and the cultural history of the Deccan, he has also published extensively on sonic culture and sound art.

Padmini Chettur began her contemporary dance career in 1990 as a member of the troupe of Chandralekha—the radical Bharatanatyam modernist choreographer, whose own opus dealt with a rigorous deconstruction of the form. Over the past two decades, Chettur has defined her own choreographic idiom—minimalist, abstract and formal—stripping movement down to an essential, anatomical investigation, prioritising a sense of tension over emotion. Since her solo work Beautiful thing 2 (2011), and in later works—Wall dancing (2013), Varnam (2016)—her practice has been showcased in visual art spaces like steirischer herbst (Graz), Kochi-Muziris Biennale (Cochin), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul), Jejak-Tabi (Jogja), Haus der Kulturender Welt (Berlin), Archive (Berlin), hangar Bicocca (Milan) as her oeuvre extended into film and durational works. Her most recent work ‘Stilling’ will premiere at G5A, Mumbai, in April 2024.

Premjish Achari is a curator, writer, and film maker. His curations include the exhibitions ‘Inscapes: In Search of a Place‘ (Bikaner House, New Delhi, 2023), ‘Things are vanishing before us‘ (Bikaner House, New Delhi, 2023), Student’s Biennale for Kochi Biennale Edition (2022-2023), ‘All Canaries Bear Watching,’ part of the Indo-UK collaboration GRID Heritage Project, SAA/JNU, Delhi (2022); ‘A Time for Farewells‘ (Haverford College, Pennsylvania, and Prameya Art Foundation, New Delhi, 2019). Premjish was the editorial supervisor of Lokame Tharavadu (‘The World Is One Family,’ 2021), a major contemporary art survey exhibition organised by the Kochi Biennale Foundation. He was the recipient of the Pro Helvetia Art Writers’ Award 2021, followed by a residency at Atelier Mondial, Basel, and published ‘Lure of Collaboration: Dissecting Consensus‘ for Take on Art; Prameya Art Foundation’s Art Scribes Award, including a residency at Château de La Napoule, France. He is currently editing the first issue of the inaugural English Art Magazine for Kerala Laithakala Akademi. He has conceptualised and initiated the Kaee Kolkata City Lab. He also directed the film on the artist Ravinder Reddy titled ‘The Other Faces‘ in 2022.

Prajakta Potnis’ practice digs deeper into the nexus between the frailty of a human body and the greed of a capitalist state. Through paintings, radiology, video and time-based installations, she examines the overburdened female body that has been incessantly exposed to varied forms of toxicity. Her works draw upon the chasm witnessed within the everyday domestic in context of gender and social divides. She has extensively shown her works since 2005 nationally and internationally. Born in 1980, Prajakta lives and works in Mumbai.

Prajakta was part of the 15th Sharjah Biennale, “Thinking Historically in the Present“, conceived by the late Okwui Enwezor and curated by Hoor Al Qasimi in early 2023. Her photographic works were part of Imagined Documents, curated by Ravi Agarwal at the 2022 Rencontres d’Arles, Arles. In 2021, she was invited to open a virtual solo exhibition titled “the slow burn” at The New Media Art Space at Baruch College, CUNY, New York. She was also part of Art Histories of a Forever War: Modernism between Space and Home, an extensive show curated by Kathleen Elizabeth Li-Ying Ditzig, Fang-Tze Hsu at the Taipei Fine Art Museum in 2021.

Artists in Residence

Adheep did a Bachelor’s in chemical engineering from BITS, Goa, before doing a Master’s in Direction and Screenplay Writing from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. He likes mixing various mediums and finding out what comes of them. Fascinated by science and arts alike, his interests take him to places that merge the two. As part of a 3-person collective, he got the ThinkArts Grant for Children in 2022. Moonless, a film he directed and animated, has competed at DokLeipzig and Dharamshala Intl. Film Festival, amongst others. His documentary Khaalti Kaay Varti Kaay competed at IDSSFK, Kerala.

Some of his work has been exhibited as part of the Kochi-Muziris Students’ Biennale and the Wrong Biennale. He has also completed the Katkatha Puppetry Incubation Lab and has worked on a shadow puppetry production called ‘Zig Zags to Earth’ as a sound designer and performer, and has performed at venues such as Max Mueller Bhawan, Delhi, and Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi.

Purnendra Meshram is a highly acclaimed Indian contemporary artist known for his exceptional work as a choreographer, dancer, performer, and teacher. He holds a diploma in Movement Arts and Mixed Media from the Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts. Purnendra’s remarkable choreographic work ‘2 Men’ has earned him numerous international and national accolades, including winning the first prize at the esteemed Festival 10 Sentidos in Valencia, Spain. He was awarded the Pina Bausch Fellowship 2023 and Artlink 100 Artist Grant 2022 for his unwavering commitment to his artistry. Currently, he is performing and teaching, alongside being engaged in creating new work.

sanghamitra (they/she) is a neuroqueer interdisciplinary artist. Their art is mostly self-reflexive and is a tool she uses to protest different levels of propaganda—the obvious kind, like centralised bigotry, or insidious, like what is allowed to be ‘good’ art.

She also uses her work to come to terms with her existence in relationship to macro- and microcosms, and is keen on extending their embodied experience of existing outside of gender and binary systems to the forms she uses— photography, videography, painting, performance, and text. Alienated away from their Bengali cultural context for most of their life, they believe in intervening in established cultural codes and iconography with their anomalous point of view, to reform them radically. They want to orient their future work towards fabulating a neuroqueer, non-brahminical, and post-anthropocentric future. They hope to soon pursue deeper artistic research in the form of a PhD.

Shesadev Sagria is an artist based in Odisha. He has a BFA in Printmaking from Govt. College of Art & Crafts, Khallikote, Odisha and an MFA in Printmaking from MS University Baroda. He is working towards understanding the evolving body and caste hierarchies from medical and ethnographical perspectives, analysing the occurrence of diseases and their connection with caste location, specific engagements within labour work and tools, and being exposed to environments within specific habitats. He proposes an alternative narrative by building new connections between the body, disease, habitat, tools, and caste, emphasising a unique evolution. Shesadev creates interactive spaces like dioramas and theatrical spaces by incorporating printmaking, sculpture, projection, performance, and text.

He was awarded the Inlaks Fine Art Award 2023, and his group exhibitions in India include ‘Imaginarium 3.0’ at Emami Art Kolkata; ‘Embark III’, an online show at Gallery Ark, Vadodara, (2020); and ‘Pushing Print’, curated by Dr Bess Frimodig at Artbuzz Studio (2019).

Born in 1996 Santiniketan, West Bengal, Urna earned an MVA from M.S University of Baroda (2018-20) and a BFA from Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan (2014-2018). She has been part of an exchange programme at Ecole supérieure des beaux-arts Angers, France (2017). Urna has also participated at Summer Academy, Salzburg, Austria, in August 2023.

She has been an Artist-in-Residence at Space Studio, Baroda and Cona Print Studio, Mumbai. Her work has been showcased as part of ‘Water’ at HH Art Spaces in Goa (October, 2023); the Alumni Show at Space Studio Baroda, (September, 2023); ‘Interim II’ at Apre Art House, Mumbai (June, 2023); ‘Embark IV/V’ at Ark Foundation, Baroda (April, 2023); the First Trans-Southeast Asia Triennial research exhibition series at Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (March 2021-May 2021); the Students’ Biennale, Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2021), ‘Voices from the Courtyard’, Baroda; and the Womanifesto Art Exchange (2020). Urna presently lives and works between Aldona, Goa and Santiniketan, West Bengal.

Writer in Residence

Saloni Jaiwal is a writer and photographer based in New Delhi. Her photographic work attempts to archive different facets of urbanity and its experience through surreal frames pulled out of everyday realities. She completed her B.A. in English Literature from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University and M.A. in Arts and Aesthetics from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. She has interned with the National Museum and Sahapedia in the past. Saloni has also worked on various curatorial projects and exhibition texts including her recent curation with LATITUDE28, ‘Which Sky Do Birds Fly’, exploring the politics of space formation and belongingness. She has managed gallery projects at national and international art fairs such as India Art Fair and Art Dubai for three consecutive years (2022/23/24) and Art SG, Singapore (2023). Her research interests include lens-based practices, moving images, and digital cultures. She regularly reviews exhibitions and conducts interviews with art practitioners. Her writing has been published in ASAP | Art and TAKE on Art Magazine.

FAQs

Q1. Can I apply with a work-in-progress project?

A1. Yes, you can apply with a work-in-progress project or a new project that you would like to realise during the course of this Residency.

Q2. I do not have a portfolio. What else can I share?

A2. You can share a set of samples of your work.

Q3. I live in New Delhi; can I still apply?

A3. Yes. Selected applicants are expected to stay in the accommodation provided by SAF for the course of the Residency.

Q4. Will my travel from my hometown be covered by SAF?

A4. No. Selected applicants will have to arrange for their own travel to New Delhi.

Q5. Can I bring collaborators on-board?

A5. Yes. However, their fee would have to be covered by the Artist-in-Residence.

Q6. I will be available to stay in Delhi only for a few days. Can I still apply?

A6. No. The selected applicants need to be in Delhi for the entire duration of the Residency.

Q7. I have a full–time job. Can I still apply?

A7. No. The selected applicants need to be involved in the Residency full-time.

Q8. I am working on several other projects as a freelancer. Can I still apply?

A8. Yes. But the selected applicant needs to be involved in the Residency full-time.

Q9. I do not have an academic writing sample. What can I submit?

A9. You can submit a sample of any kind of non-fiction writing.

Q10. I am a performance-based artist applying for the open call. Can you specify the dimensions of the rehearsal space provided?

A10. Unfortunately, due to logistical constraints, the dimensions of the space you may use for your performance/rehearsals will be approximately 390 sq. ft. We encourage you to consider whether this will be adequate for your project before you apply.

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