Artist residency opportunity – Vadodara, Gujarat, India

Artist residency opportunity

- ceramics/metalworks

Vadodara, Gujarat, India

 This is an opportunity for artists to develop their practice in ceramics and metal work in a working studio based in a lively city which has a thriving and cultivated arts scene, including one of the most respected universities in the country.  MSU Baroda which has produced many of the key contemporary artists and contributors to the Indian art scene in recent times.

The ceramic / metal works residency opportunity offered in Vadodara will be hosted in the following periods:

1. January until March (3 month period)

2. September until November (3 month period)

The cost for the 3 month residency will be £1500

Artists who wish to work for longer than 3 months may do so in the September to March period by individual arrangement made with the host.

 

The residency will provide:

Accommodation: apartment with kitchen and hot-water shower facilities.

Studio visits to artists living and working in Vadodara

Sightseeing trip to the UNESCO world heritage site of Champaner and Ahmedabad city.

Technical assistance

Hardware including Drill/polishing machine/etc

Lunch (simple Indian home cooked food) Artists are responsible for their own dinner. Vadodara is equipped with local and international grocery stores and many affordable restaurants.

Artists are expected to conduct at least one open studio and public talk during the period of the residency.

There will be an opportunity to host a exhibition at the University Gallery at the end of the residency. (Exhibition to be discussed with individual artists)

 

Artists are responsible for the following:

 Cost of travel to and from Vadodara, and day to day travel

Insurance – Personal Insurance only. The studio is fully insured.

cost of materials used including clay, glaze, gas for firing, bronze, plaster

Cost of material transport to and from artists home to the studio

Manual assistance (if used)

 

Studio Facilities include the following:

Ceramic and Bronze casting studio consisting of:

1. Electric wheels x 5

2. Kick wheels x 3

3. Gas Kiln x 3 (specifications below*)

4. Large working tables x 3

5. Facility to make custom clays

6. Small glaze room with air brushing station

7. Moulding platforms

 

Casting is done at an off-site facility with full manual and technical assistance.

The studio also offers fibre-glass, scrape metal fabrication facilities, these should be discussed in advance with individual artist.

 

*kiln specs:

1. test kiln,

2. 3-1/2′x 3-1/2′ x 3-1/2′ Loading space

3. 6-1/2′x 4-1/2′ x 4-1/2′ Loading space

Max Temperature 1325C

To apply contact:

Yogesh Mahida –

email:mahidayogesh10@gmail.com

Artists should attach an up to date Bio/CV

10 JPEGs of recent works

Ceangal news 2013

Spring is finally springing and we are delighted to announce that the Highland Council are once again supporting us in 2013 – their ongoing support is very much appreciated. There will be a Ceangal meeting on Wed 5^th June at 7.30pm in Gairloch Fire Station, so if you would like to be involved, participate or just find out more, please come along.

We have participants coming from Poland, France/UK, Japan, India and hopefully Canada and Indonesia, so it will be an exciting mix and we very much look forwards to reaching out to more people this year, so spread the word – this year 14th -31st August are the dates, so keep an eye on the Gairloch & District Times, and the blog!

We are very much looking for volunteers/participants for this year, so if you would like to get involved, please do get in touch!

email: ceangalconnect@gmail.com or call Lynn on 01445712389

 

Bad news from Creative Scotland

 We had been waiting to hear from Creative  Scotland about the outcome of our application for funding for Ceangal 2013, which Lynn had spend weeks working on. We are very disappointed to have to say we were unsuccessful in obtaining funding from them once again – It would be interesting to see who and what projects received monies, and which areas of Scotland will be benefiting.

We are planning to hold Ceangal from 14th-31st August 2013, and strongly feel that it has the potential to be even more inclusive and successful after last year, but now we obviously have to rethink our options regarding finance as we cannot afford to contribute financially as before. 

Ceangal was very much a community project and the goodwill of many was what made it special, and also ensured the participation of many.  We hope that the support will still be there, but had hoped for more support from a public body and to be able to recompense those who are so generous with their time, ideas and influence.  Ceangal is not about personal gain, it is in a sense the property of Gairloch, and we wish to raise the profile of the area further to a group of people who will come, enjoy, create, respect and appreciate the West Coast as the special area it is, so if anyone has any ideas regarding this and how we can move forwards and raise the necessary funds it would be much appreciated.

The feedback we received from the community was on the whole very positive and we feel it would be a real loss for the project to not move ahead further, especially building on the comments we received both from the artists and members of the public.

We would value any comments or ideas about to how to move forwards.

Creative Scotland commented that the competition was very high, they’d received 85 submissions requesting an excess of £2.5million. They could only support 14 projects out of that. They recognised the strengths in our application, but it wasn’t as strong as other applications, the geographical spread and ‘range’ of applications was also cited as a consideration.

Ingella Davis-Show 2012

This gallery contains 2 photos.

Vicky Stonebridge- Show 2012

My work during Ceangal has been an intuitive response to the natural woodlands and native forests encountered in the Gairloch area. Every woodland we explored had its own atmosphere; a different range of smells, plant life, birdsong, colours and light. Vibrant timeless ecosystems, remaining pockets of the great wood of Caledon which nurtured and protected the peoples before us for thousands of years. In our recent history we have become disconnected from the land, from the seasons, and have lost simple traditional skills, and rarely work with our hands.

I only gathered small amounts from any one tree or woodland, so as to not leave any visible impact and to widely explore the area. the work was to explore the cycles, seasons, the celtic tree alphabet, the tree of life, the rags and prayers people attach to sacred trees, faerie trees or ‘cloutie’ wells, ancient faiths and creating patterns like celtic knotwork, the weave a metaphor for our lives and connections. Rather than the expected  tranquil woodland meditation the residency became an unpredictable fight against the weather, the woodlands and my own self imposed limitations.

Count our blessings

As a society we are too focused on aspirations, on what we want, what we haven’t got, what others have, rather than remembering o give thanks. I wanted to create a sphere that reminds us to do this. I wove the sphere sheltering from the rain under a beautiful Hazel tree, coloured paper with bramble juice. The pupils from Gairloch High school decorated it with what they are blessed with and thankful for.

Full of Hope.

This sphere was made from sticks gathered widely across the area. I gathered Rowan Berries to fill it with, this harvest is ephemeral, if shaken they fall out. As the berries drop out they leave hints of colour wherever the sphere has been. Hopes, dreams, wishes and aspirations should be held gently also. Sometimes we need to let go of them too.

Mud,Blood and Love

A simple Birchwood hoop, rags and threads stained with brambles and peat. Life is neither light nor dark. Nature is not always gentle, love and pain, joy and sufferning, all part of the story. The triskele can stand for many things, earth, sky, and sea being one. We are all woven into the web of life, all but a small part of a balanced connected greater whole.

Head space

24 Birch saplings formed the uprights to this structure, a basket with no base, a shelter a dome, a fairy home, a vessel, a container; it took on the shape of a head and could easily be a cage rather than a shelter. We can live in harmony with nature or trap ourselves in a disconnected world within the limits of our own heads. Throughout our lives what sort of construction are we weaving- a flexible, open, nurturing structure or a brittle, dense, constrictive one?

Puja Bahri-Show 2012

‘ I SURRENDER ‘

Walking along the pine trains of the surreal Gairloch…very excited as the mind and eyes were trying to soak in all the splendor, I found myself moving mindfully , observing more closely and carefully, and experiencing a sublime state of awareness. Photography is a significant part of my art practice. I take photos to narrate stories.

A walk in the Flowerdale Trail was like taking a stroll in the nature’s gallery that has enormous natural art formations. Uniquely beautiful twisted branches of trees, a throne like blossomed tree, massive uprooted trees with exposed roots, and new plants growing from roots of the dead trees. Many such wild and natural formations don’t imitate human art forms, they simply expand it. Besides the aesthetic quality, the wild wood formations document excesses of time, its footprints, they all tell stories of times that runs parallel to human lives.

When confronted with vast and inimitable beauty of these natural ‘installations’ I could not help being overwhelmed and the instinctive response was to SURRENDER BEFORE THE SUBLIME.

Hence I chose to take fragments of those beautiful natural installations and contextualize them in my work in Gairloch. I have photographed some of the natural installations and place them in modern urban backdrop. I have used a mix of photography, wood, found objects and other natural materials to demonstrate a dynamic relationship between humankind and the nature.

This work tries to document a contrast between natural processes of growth and decay and the man made technological world through my photography. The work has moved into the realm of installation incorporating the natural materials as symbols in a universal language.  The abandoned boats in Badachro are as if natural installations..in nature’s lap. Experiencing these within the context of landscape and memory becomes a metaphor for the individual’s metaphysical relationship with the natural world. I’m reminded here of the famous lines of Wordsworth; “What’s the point of this life full of care if you have no time to stand and stare.”.The swing made of an abandoned piece of a boat and on purpose tied upside down, has layers of meanings attached to it and is a metaphor for joy, celebration, innocence, childhood, memories and freedom that we would have experienced in our life time. The work explores diverse meanings incorporated in everyday, overlooked objects one would find around us and the viewer is invited to look more closely at that what has been experienced on a daily basis.  Objects and images take on layers of meanings leading to diverse interpretations.

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Somu Desai- Show 2012

This is second year of my association with Gairloch and Ceangal International Art Residency. A few things I learnt about Scottish Highlands in general and Gairloch specifically, during this time has made strong impressions on my sensibility. It is from these impressions that my art works made here originate. One of the visuals that fascinate me the most are the woods and farms that are dotted throughout the Highlands. Then I notice the sheep grazing in the wooded enclosures and farms. A conversation about this landscape eventually leads to references of forcible displacement of significant number of people from Scottish Highlands to make way for ‘agricultural revolution’ in 18th and 19th century. Ironically, I am told, people were removed from vast patches of land for sheep rearing.  One of my work untitled Refers to those events and explores continuing conflict between development of economy and the masses, modernity and personal histories.
Most of us remain curious about ‘other’ cultures of ‘foreign lands and I am no exception to this nor is the local community of Gairloch. Our day today practices and rituals fascinate ‘others’.  In Indian metros we struggle to find quiet paths for people to walk on. The walks there are restricted mostly in small local parks. But here in Highlands, there are many beautiful forest trails for people to enjoy their walks. It is no surprise that ‘walking’ is a kind of cultural ritual in routine Highlands’s life. On the other hand many people who visit India are intrigued by various symbols they see outside and inside Indian homes. For instance, many Hindu families in India mark their house door with a symbol which reads                   ‘Shubh Labh’, a good luck wish for the visitors to the home. Aligning synergies between Scottish and Indian culture is the core of my other work titled SHUBH LABH.