Sharing Ideas in Distant Places

Visual artist OLWEN SHONE travelled to Bangalore, and discovered a world far removed from – and yet connected to – her home ground in North Uist, where the project began.

ARTISTS FROM Brazil, Argentina, India, South Africa, Japan, Nepal, Tibet, Cuba and Trinidad standing on the sand dunes looking with astonishment at the stunning landscape behind Newton House near my own house in Lochmaddy, North Uist.  It’s a memory that will stay with me.  The Triangle Trust artist’s residency, Comhla, was the first of its kind in Scotland and was an incredible event to have happened, particularly in our remote corner of Scotland, which became the stimulus for most of the work made there.

Four months on, and the communications between the artists taking part has led to myself setting up a short residency in Bangalore, in a place called ‘The Land’ run by an artists’ group called Labyrinth.  This is situated in a small village on the outskirts of Bangalore. The purpose of the residency was to further develop a film installation project called ‘Moving Images’ which will first be shown at the gallery ROOM in Bristol in May.

Bangalore is supposed to be the fastest growing city in Asia.  It is on the tip of everyone’s tongue involved in big business and call centres.  Experiencing the roads alone is something else!  As I set out across the city in one of India’s famous Auto-rickshaws, I soon realised that there was mostly no rhyme or reason to the constant blaring of horns from the heavy traffic.

I passed many a family of five squashed onto the back of one small moped, and women in beautiful Saris sitting side-saddle on the back of them seemed to me the epitomy of elegance and then disappearing again, lost in all the dust and smog of the traffic.  The pollution from the petrol fumes is clearly a problem in Bangalore, as many people had masked their faces.

One of the arts projects currently underway is a campaign to bring new awareness of this problem to the local people through commissioning artists to decorate the public transport buses with artworks dealing with these issues.  Plans for a new underground train network are also in progress to help ease the weight of traffic.

To make the Triangle Trust link, I first went to see the site of the Triangle Trust Residency that had just taken place in Bangalore in December, where some of the work from the exhibition still remained.  The site couldn’t have been more public, set in the grounds of a Contemporary Art Gallery along one of the main roads through the city.

The three illuminated tops of yellow auto rickshaw’s lying in a river was Mexican artist Betsabe Romera’s response to Urban India.  Sheela Gowda had made an outside display of a collection of objects and distorted personal photographs placed on shelves behind glass; the sculpture was then distorted further by the drifting smoke from burning ashes.

Scotland’s Anias Wilder was also participating in this residency and made large-scale posters in the style of the Indian film advertising boards.  Apparently, the event stirred up a lot of curiosity, with 5000 visitors over the two open days!

Back on the road again, and although the city had been a very exciting experience I was grateful to be taken out to the rural setting for my residency.  The journey took me through villages where local people were herding goats, making bricks, grinding corn, and other jobs that consisted of basic hard labour.  Houses were simple basic structures lining the roads, there seemed to be a lively community spirit.

Eventually I arrived at ‘The Land’ and knew immediately that this was an environment that I would be able to respond to.  Set in half an acre of woodland at the edge of a small village, ‘The Land’ functions as a base for artists’ residencies or a place for groups from schools and colleges to stay and take part in workshops using the facilities here for making crafts, such as ceramics.

People from the nearby village are employed here to help with the production of ceramics, having taken training courses at one of the art schools in Bangalore, Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology.  The centre has the gentle atmosphere of a spiritual retreat that allows the space for artists to make their work.

I was here to continue a project I had begun whilst artist-in-residence in Sweden in 2002  – a series of films called ‘Moving Images’.  The looped films show abstract images of different layers and surfaces found in nature.  Presented on wall-mounted flat screens in a gallery space, the films are closely linked to The Still Image; the experience of viewing them, however, is interrupted by tiny droplets or other subtle interventions.

I spent the following few days walking, and eventually found an area of wasteland just outside the village and set about my work. Over the three weeks I gathered enough material to create some contrasts and variation in colour and movement between the films I had previously made in Sweden.  The landscape of India, the dried earth, vivid colours and strong sunlight offered the ‘Moving Images’ project a new dynamic.  I also worked with the natural light on a new film project experimenting with large-scale projections.

Finally before I left for Scotland, I was invited to give a talk on my work to Fine Art students at Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology.  I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of the School, the atmosphere seemed vibrant and the environment was bright and spacious.  The school’s ethos, like much of the Contemporary Art in India, is based on socio-political and socio-economic issues, so I felt that by talking about my ideas, which touch more on a visual experience and the experience of place, I have offered the students a different direction in which to think about taking their work.
 
Olwen Shone’s work will be shown in a joint exhibition with Lesley Punton at ROOM, 4 Alfred Place, Redcliff, Bristol  from 14 May –11 June 2004; in a touring exhibition with Gunilla Hanssen at Taigh Chearsabhagh, Isle of North Uist, from 20 August – 17 September 2004; and at Galleri Konstepedemin, Gothenberg, Sweden, from 25 September – 23 October 2004.

© Olwen Shone, 2004
 

Related link

• Taigh Chearsabhagh