JOIN USGoethe Institut’s first Pecha-Kucha Night was held recently, where in the City was introduced to eight new ‘bangaloREsidents’ who have come down from Germany for different collaborations and cultural exchanges.
Jivan Frenster, the 1 Shanti Road resident, spoke about how he produces pictures
via various medium like photography, video, sound, performance and painting.
“Aesthetic stimulation is very important to me and I’ve started going for walks with the local artists to discuss Bangalore. I don’t know what I’ll do but the first ideas have started emerging,” he said.
Graphic designer Verena Gerlach spoke of her journey with typography, book designing and printing techniques. Here for a residency at Jaaga, she plans to work with fabrics and sign paintings around the City.
“The best thing would be if someone could wear a poster,” she joked during her talk. Sabine Hornig, a sculptor and photographer, will be working at Pepper House (Kochi). While in Bangalore, she hopes to buy fabrics and take photographs to use as sculpture later. “I work with architectural samples and transparent fabrics to use photographs as sculpture. I like that you see overlays in everything in India and hope to create some installations here,” she explained.
Media artist Johanna Steindorf will be a resident at Blank Noise, where she will create links between art and activism. After presenting some unique photo-series of hers like
‘Detourment’ and ‘Cleaning’, she said, “I’m interested in finding out how cultural translation can happen here because it fascinates me that one can’t escape a completely new place. I plan to work with women who aren’t from here but are living here.”
An interesting crossover project will be pursued by Catrine Val, an artist, resident at Natya and STEM Dance Kampni. After showcasing her earlier works, where she worked with herself as a visual space, Catrine said, “The notion of identity interests me and what I plan to do here is to work on feminine positions. As part of my project ‘Philosophers’, I’d like to take a female perspective on the philosophical traditions of India.”
Stage and costume designer-cum-photographer Daniela Hohenberger, resident at Infinite Souls, shared her plans of working on ‘Image of a Woman’, a gender-based photography workshop. Film-maker Till Hastreiter, who will be Suchitra Film Society’s first resident, was not present at the event.
However, it was announced that he would be conducting a film workshop and documenting first-time voters this election in the tradition of cinema ‘verite’.
The final speaker was media theorist and artist Claudia Reiche, who plans to work on a project titled ‘H*jra*’ using digital photograph while in Bangalore.
“I want to document the difficulty of documenting what is known as the ‘third gender’. I’m also planning to explore the subject in the context of Indian eroticism,” she said.
The audience enjoyed listening to the short introductions to the projects and many stayed on to interact with the artists afterwards.
“Each of them had very interesting projects but Catrine’s one intrigued me because
of the contrast of identities. I also felt that Claudia’s has a lot of potential. I found this a great platform for artists to express themselves and for people to get a glimpse of their work,” said Jeffrey Butts Jr, an audience member.