Dhai Akhar: Seeded in Love
A Multidisciplinary Show
Artist Talk and Art Showcase
Saturday, October 3, 2020 at 7 PM PDT – 8 PM PDT
Public · Hosted by InnerEye Art
Online with Facebook Live
Featured Artists: Ellen Bepp, Shailly Sharma Bhatnagar, Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, Reiko Fujii, Indrani Nayar Gall,
Nirmal Raja, and Irene Wibawa.
To honor the power of radical love "Dhai Akhar: Seeded in Love" features artists and writers whose art practice creates a dialogic space for healing and transformation. Inspired by the teaching, poetry, and the life of saint-poet 'Kabir', the showcase urges inclusion, acceptance, and equity for all, standing firmly against the instigation of hate and communal violence.
Curated by Pallavi Sharma (Ph.D.)
Header Image: Points Words Threads I; 2008; 3D installation and audio (detail) by Indrani Nayar Gall
For Facebook event page- https://www.facebook.com/348132893632/photos/gm.1181640508887283/10158567554573633/
A Multidisciplinary Show
Artist Talk and Art Showcase
Saturday, October 3, 2020 at 7 PM PDT – 8 PM PDT
Public · Hosted by InnerEye Art
Online with Facebook Live
Featured Artists: Ellen Bepp, Shailly Sharma Bhatnagar, Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, Reiko Fujii, Indrani Nayar Gall,
Nirmal Raja, and Irene Wibawa.
To honor the power of radical love "Dhai Akhar: Seeded in Love" features artists and writers whose art practice creates a dialogic space for healing and transformation. Inspired by the teaching, poetry, and the life of saint-poet 'Kabir', the showcase urges inclusion, acceptance, and equity for all, standing firmly against the instigation of hate and communal violence.
Curated by Pallavi Sharma (Ph.D.)
Header Image: Points Words Threads I; 2008; 3D installation and audio (detail) by Indrani Nayar Gall
For Facebook event page- https://www.facebook.com/348132893632/photos/gm.1181640508887283/10158567554573633/
Featuring folk singer Padmshri Prahlad Singh Tipaniya and scholar, writer, and educator Pranjali Sirasao.
Featured Art works
Title: Points, Words, Threads, Untitled II;
Artist: Indrani Nayar Gall
2008; Collaborative multi-media installation with Intaglio-Type (photo intaglio) and time-based media Dreaming (collaboration with William Davis); Size: 8 ft x 10 ft, individual print size: 2ft x 2ft. This project was sponsored by the Gilmore Emerging Artist Grant through The Art Council of Greater Kalamazoo, MI
Voices narration: Michael Carpentier (narrator 1), Nora Burnett (narrator 2), Sophia Woodward, Jenna Teachout, Ari Solomon, Angus Ismoyo, Ario Gunung Sena, Anamita Gall, David Gall, Indrani Gall
Script: Excerpts from “Darfur Diaries”: Jen Marlow et al
Sound recording, Direction and Drawing: Indrani Nayar-Gall
Original animation, composition, sound edition: William Davis
Recreation of animation: Triparna Roy
Editing: Bijoy Ruj
Artist: Indrani Nayar Gall
2008; Collaborative multi-media installation with Intaglio-Type (photo intaglio) and time-based media Dreaming (collaboration with William Davis); Size: 8 ft x 10 ft, individual print size: 2ft x 2ft. This project was sponsored by the Gilmore Emerging Artist Grant through The Art Council of Greater Kalamazoo, MI
Voices narration: Michael Carpentier (narrator 1), Nora Burnett (narrator 2), Sophia Woodward, Jenna Teachout, Ari Solomon, Angus Ismoyo, Ario Gunung Sena, Anamita Gall, David Gall, Indrani Gall
Script: Excerpts from “Darfur Diaries”: Jen Marlow et al
Sound recording, Direction and Drawing: Indrani Nayar-Gall
Original animation, composition, sound edition: William Davis
Recreation of animation: Triparna Roy
Editing: Bijoy Ruj
Title: The Wall Within
Artist: Nirmal Raja
2020
Found fabric, plaster, fabricated wooden structure, acrylic paint
Video performance (7:26 min) with sculpture (6' x 24").
Cinematography- Maeve Jackson
Editing- Nirmal Raja and Maeve Jackson
Music- Owen Rollins
Poem- Rabindranath Tagore
Statement:
This work is in conversation with a poem written in 1900 by the great Rabindranath Tagore - a poet, artist and freedom fighter in India. Most elementary school children in India memorize his poem Where the Mind Is Without Fear. Forty years after I first learned it, the words roll off my tongue naturally. Like any poetry memorized in childhood, the meaning reveals itself over time.
It is a hopeful poem. Similar to Langston Hughes’ Let America Be America Again, it points to the ideals of a nation and the labor demanded of us while working toward this goal.
Recent events with police violence, Black Lives Matter movement, and the healthcare disparity in the wake of COVID 19 compelled me to examine Tagore’s poem with renewed interest. Our country and society is in flux again. The flawed foundations of what seemed immovable and permanent are being called out and examined. Each brick of our society is being nudged, peeled, shoved, removed, dusted off and re-laid with an acknowledgement to truth and towards something stronger. For me, “The land that never has been yet” (Hughes) is also where “The mind is without fear" (Tagore). The work continues, one brick at a time, one small systemic change at a time. Progress is slow and although sometimes it may feel like “one step forward, two steps back”, that is what nation building is. A slow and continual labor of love.
America is yet to be.
Artist: Nirmal Raja
2020
Found fabric, plaster, fabricated wooden structure, acrylic paint
Video performance (7:26 min) with sculpture (6' x 24").
Cinematography- Maeve Jackson
Editing- Nirmal Raja and Maeve Jackson
Music- Owen Rollins
Poem- Rabindranath Tagore
Statement:
This work is in conversation with a poem written in 1900 by the great Rabindranath Tagore - a poet, artist and freedom fighter in India. Most elementary school children in India memorize his poem Where the Mind Is Without Fear. Forty years after I first learned it, the words roll off my tongue naturally. Like any poetry memorized in childhood, the meaning reveals itself over time.
It is a hopeful poem. Similar to Langston Hughes’ Let America Be America Again, it points to the ideals of a nation and the labor demanded of us while working toward this goal.
Recent events with police violence, Black Lives Matter movement, and the healthcare disparity in the wake of COVID 19 compelled me to examine Tagore’s poem with renewed interest. Our country and society is in flux again. The flawed foundations of what seemed immovable and permanent are being called out and examined. Each brick of our society is being nudged, peeled, shoved, removed, dusted off and re-laid with an acknowledgement to truth and towards something stronger. For me, “The land that never has been yet” (Hughes) is also where “The mind is without fear" (Tagore). The work continues, one brick at a time, one small systemic change at a time. Progress is slow and although sometimes it may feel like “one step forward, two steps back”, that is what nation building is. A slow and continual labor of love.
America is yet to be.