Artcore and FORMAT International Residency callout: Holi Hai!

Deadline: 11/12/2022

City: Vadodara, India & Derby, UK  |  Country: India  |  Artcore Gallery

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UK Artist Open Call: Artcore and FORMAT International Residency Partnership. Holi Hai! is an International Residency that will take place in India and the UK in early 2023. This collaborative partnership between Artcore and FORMAT International Photography Festival will support the creative collaboration and exchange of 2 UK artists and 1 Indian artist working in lens-based and related media.

The selected artists will undertake a one week residency in Vadodara, India, alongside two artists from Derby, UK. They will then travel to Derby, UK to install an exhibition at Artcore as part of the next FORMAT biennale – FORMAT23 – taking place in Derby. 

The Holi Hai! Residency will take place in the tribal-rich district of Chhota Udepur in the western-most state of Gujarat. For the Rathwa tribal community in this region, Holi is their most important festival and is celebrated across the districts for almost ten days. The main method of celebration is through numerous village fairs where tribal families, dressed in their best clothes and jewellery congregate to enjoy themselves; participating in community song and dance, playing the flute, shopping, eating from food stalls and so on. The villagers reach the fair, almost dancing their way from their village. It is a sight that is seen to be believed! 

The base for the Resident Artists in this tribal area will be the Adivasi Academy (Adivasi = Tribal) at village Tejgadh in Chhota Udepur district. Adivasi Academy is managed by the Vadodara-based Bhasha Research and Publication Centre which works with documentation of tribal culture, history, arts and crafts, performance art, way of life and their indigenous languages. The Adivasi Academy was established in 1996 and the buildings came up over the next ten years.

It currently houses a Tribal Museum, a large Library, and a modest residential school for tribal children of labourer-parents. The Resident Artists will be supported by selected staff (tribal) from the Academy who will accompany them to the fairs and other local places of interest. Bhasha and the Adivasi Academy are not-for-profit organisations depending on funded projects and donations for their sustenance. 

However, with the entry of technology in tribal areas some of the traditional tribal ways of life are giving way to the ways of the urban mainstream. In 2023, Holi falls on the 6th and 7th of March (Holika worship and burning on the evening of the 6th and Dhuleti – playing with colours – on the 7th). The most important Holi fair is the Gher no Melo (9th March, near Kawant town), then there is Raichinpura no Melo (10th and 11th of March near Tejgadh) and Waghwastal no Melo (12th March, near Chota Udepur town). (Melo = Fair). 

The selected residency artists will have the chance to visit these fairs, meet residents and other artists, and the opportunity to visit the Art School at the M S University in Vadodara city and Champaner-Pavagadh, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is in that neighbourhood. They will also spend a few days in the nearby cities of Vadodara and Ahmedabad, (also a UNESCO Word Heritage City) to learn more about the tribal communities and importance of the Holi festival. The artists will each make work responding to the festival celebrations, culture, and residents of the villages; exchange ideas and practices to curate a collaborative exhibition at Artcore Gallery in Derby, UK for FORMAT23. 

About FORMAT 

FORMAT International Photography Festival is one of Europe’s leading international contemporary festivals of photography and related media. It organises a year-round programme of international commissions, open calls, residencies, conferences, and collaborations in the UK and internationally and welcomes over 100,000 visitors from all over the world to its biennale.   

FORMAT is the place to engage with an incredible range of work from new and emerging photographers alongside that of some of the best-known practitioners in the world. FORMAT is focused on developing opportunities for audiences to see, debate, develop, contribute, and participate in the best of what photography is and can be, through events such as our yearly international photography portfolio review, Exhibitions, Commissions, Mass Participation, our International Open Call, Events, Talks, Performance, Master Classes, Talks and more.   

FORMAT is organised by QUAD and DMARC (Digital and Material Artistic Research Centre of the University of Derby) and is supported by Arts Council England, Derby City Council, and multiple partners from the UK and abroad. www.formatfestival.com  

About Artcore  

Artcore is an international centre for contemporary art and creativity based in Derby, UK and home to Artcore Gallery, studios and workspaces as well as a shop and café. A vibrant hub for commissioning, production, presentation, and debate, we offer opportunities for diverse audiences to engage directly with creative practices through participation and discussion. We believe that contemporary art and creativity are central to the development of people and places.

We have an extensive exhibition and residency programme which helps support early, mid-career and established artists to create work which deals with pressing social, political and environmental issues. Each year we welcome people from all sections of the diverse communities of Derby and beyond to experience inspiring, innovative, and high-quality exhibitions and events. Over 25 years we have developed links all over the world, building a global creative community that helps us support aspiring artists in the contemporary art world. www.artcoreuk.com  

Baroda and Artists: 

It is believed that the city is home to more than 400 artists, many of whom are amongst the most important contemporary Indian artists, known internationally. The Faculty of Fine Arts at the M S University of Baroda (the local art school) is one of the most well-known modern art schools in India. It teaches Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture and Ceramics, Art History & Aesthetics, Museology, and Applied Arts. Please do refer to the book, Contemporary Art in Baroda, that is in the Artcore library. It would be a good idea if the India artists can give an illustrated talk about their work at the Faculty of Fine Arts (art school) in Vadodara. That will be managed by Artcore.

Artcore believes that by becoming a part of a residency, the British artists’ participation in the Indian Art Residency would be far more meaningful in their own development as artists and in the experience, they can garner from their travel to a country outside of the UK and Europe. They would be able to interact with the local artists during the tenure of the residency, form friendships, and be introduced to larger circles of artists in the process. They would also be able to decide how they would like to spend the third week of their Indian Art Residency Programme – travelling within or outside of Gujarat, visiting Art Fairs or any other good Art event being organized in India at that point of time, or just be a regular tourist and visit places of historical interest.  

About Baroda (Vadodara): 

Today’s Vadodara, the former capital of the princely Gaekwad State, has a long and tumultuous history. The name “Vadodara” has been derived from the profusion of Banyan or “Vad” trees in the area – a settlement in the embrace of Vad trees. The city has been marked by the presence of the Gujarat Sultanate rulers, the Moghuls, the Maratha Gaekwads and the British, who have left their imprints on the architectural and cultural development of the city, sinking in deep roots like the Banyan Tree itself and bravely withstanding the onslaught of time. 

The past is always interesting, and the past of a princely state is often intriguing as well. The earliest settlements of what is present-day Vadodara date back to more than 2000 years. This settlement was then called Ankotakka (present-day Akota area) that developed as a riverine settlement on the banks of the Vishwamitri river (3rd BC to 500 AD). Ankotakka grew up to the Bhimnath temple complex in Sayaji Gunj. Vatapatraka developed as its eastern suburb (500-900 AD) on a higher elevation, which is present-day Kothi area.

Archeological excavations at Akota which threw up the magnificent horde of what came to be classified as the Akota Bronzes (presently in the Baroda Museum) are irrefutable evidence of this theory. Frequent flooding of the Vishwamitri, which flows close to Akota, shrank the importance of Ankotakka, giving rise to Vatapadraka whose elevation became its strength. Vatapadraka grew to be a large urban agglomeration with the elevated Kothi area at its centre. 

When Gujarat was taken over by the Gujarat Sultanate rulers, and Mehmud Begda shifted the capital from Ahmedabad to Champaner, Vatapadraka village, on the outskirts of the vast Champaner, was strategically seen as in the line of its defense from invaders in the south. This led to the building of Killa-e-Daulatabad (about 1511, which makes 2017 the city’s 506th anniversary year), the walled city with Mandvi pavilion at its centre and the four Darwazas – Leheripura Gate, Champaner Gate, Panigate, Gendigate – linked by a strong, high Wall. Daulatabad was built by Sultan Muzaffar, the son of Mehmud Begda who had established Champaner as the capital of Gujarat in 1482. Daulatabad developed away from Vatapadraka, and as a fortified ‘walled’ city with the blessings of the powerful Gujarat Sultanate, attracted people who made it their home. 

The Marathas annexed the region in 1720. Because of the clusters of the vast, huge and hoary banyan trees in the area, the Gaekwads named the place ‘Badode’ which in Marathi language meant a banyan cluster. (Incidentally, Vadodara also had a vast number of sandalwood trees which had led to it once being called Chandanvati! That’s another story, though!) Pilajirao and Damajirao Gaekwad are believed to have stayed for a while at the Bhadra Palace, the Muslim Governor’s citadel outside the Panigate, before they moved to what is now the Sayaji School in Mandvi (near the Tankshal) while their own palace, the Sarkarwada, was being built near Mandvi pavilion. The remnants of Sarkarwada, once a beautiful wooden Maratha wada, still exist, while the wondrous Nazar Baug Palace, built in the European Neo-Classical tradition by the now wealthy Gaekwads just behind the Sarkarwada, has unfortunately bitten the dust. 

In the meanwhile, the British had already come to Badode (1802). They anglicized it to ‘Baroda’. (In Hindi, it became Badauda and the local Gujaratis called it Vadodara.) The first British Residency and Military Contingent was stationed within the walls of Kothi, and the influence of European architecture can be seen in the design of the present Kothi Kacheri and the Records Tower complex opposite it. By 1835, however, the Residency moved away from Kothi to the northwest of the city (present-day M S University’s office complex opposite the Polytechnic). This was a segregated settlement with a cantonment -- the Residency Bungalow in the Neo-Classical style, surrounded by the Camp, which is what the present Fatehgunj area also came to be known as. The Railway chugged into Baroda in 1859 and a Civil station came up between the British settlement and Badoda ‘city’. It quietly laid the foundation to modern industrialization. 

The period 1860 to 1940 was an epoch of unprecedented and phenomenal development of Vadodara. Sayajirao III, who led this transformation, was crowned the Maharaja in 1875. The Baroda College building (Faculty of Arts) was planned along the road to the Station (1879), and the vast Kamati Baug (renamed Sayaji Baug) along the road to the Camp. Sir T Madhav Rao, one of the most dynamic Dewans that Baroda State had, engaged Robert Chisholm for the design of institutional buildings in 1880. In 1886, the first institutional building designed by Chisholm was the Anglo-Vernacular School for Boys (presently the Faculty of Performing Arts/Music College).

Between 1885-90, Ajwa, the artificial water reservoir was created 16 miles away with a filtration plant halfway at Nimeta as a part of the comprehensive waterworks scheme to ensure safe drinking water for Vadodara’s citizens. Nyaya Mandir, with a legal system of justice, was designed and built between 1892-96. The fabulous Laxmi Vilas, the new palace designed away from the hustle and bustle of the city, amidst rolling meadows and woods in the tradition of European royal estates, continues to be home to the present Gaekwad family. 

Today, Vadodara (renamed thus in the 1970s) is a cosmopolitan, tier-two city, also selected to be a ‘Smart City’ from a bunch of fast-growing cities by the Indian Government. Over the last so many centuries, the city has seen many difficulties, but unlike any other city anywhere in the world, it has a strange ability to hold on to its residents and continuously gather those wandering away again and again into its fold! Once a Barodian, always a Barodian! 

Connectivity: 

Vadodara is well-connected by trains to all parts of India. Both Mumbai (in the south) and Delhi (in the north) are an overnight journey away. Vadodara is also connected to Delhi and Mumbai by air. 

Residency objectives: 

·        Explore and engage with tribal and artist communities of Vadodara 

·        Create a body of work to be exhibited at Artcore, UK as part of FORMAT23 in April, date to be confirmed.

·        Create dialogue and engagement with the Baroda artists community and the wider Indian Contemporary Arts and Cultural Sector (artists, studios, producers, galleries, venues and festivals) 

Person Specification: 

We are looking for ONE India based artist with: 

·        A commitment to developing their lens-based practice 

·        The applicant must demonstrate an interest in how sharing practices and collaborative working can inform the development of their work and how this residency will benefit their practice. 

·        An aim to embrace the ways in which cultural experiences will inform further development of their own work. The residency will take place in Baroda, India. 

The programme includes the following benefits: 

·        Support international travel for the Indian artist (India-UK-India), + VISA 

·        Boarding and lodging from 01/03/2023 – 08/03/2023  (in Baroda and Chhota Udepur)

  • Boarding and lodging from 15/03/2023 - 31/03/2023 (in Derby, UK)
  • All local travel will be provided.

·        Cash allowance of £400 (£200 in India and £200 in UK) 

·        Mentoring and support from the Artcore and FORMAT curatorial teams 

·        Artist blog 

·        Artist talks 

·        E Catalogue 

·        Opportunity to deliver workshops with local artists 

·        Publicity and marketing support 


Residency deadline:
 

Residency application deadline: 11th December 2022 

Artist selection/Interview: Week commencing 12th December 2022 (date to be confirmed)

Residency: From 1st March 2023 – 8th March 2023 

Exhibition in UK: April 2023 - Dates to be confirmed

 

Contact the curator
Who is eligible for this opportunity?
We welcome applications from Indian artists working in lens and digital media.
When is the deadline?
Midnight 11/12/2022
Are there expenses for artists?
No. But the artists will have to purchase appropriate medical insurance to cover their stay.
When are the residency dates?
From 1st March 2023 to 8th March 2023
How do you decide on proposals?
A selection panel will evaluate each artist project based on the following criteria:
Innovation and originality
The quality and creativity of the project
The coherence of the project and its relevance within the career of the candidate
The viability of the project and how suitable the International Residency media and work spaces are for
the proposed project.
The capacity to create channels for artistic activity between different contexts and to search for reciprocity
between UK and India.
The capacity and enthusiasm to engage with Baroda and beyond communities of artists, art practitioners,
curators and critics.
Interest in donating a selection of the artworks produced during the residency to be a part of Artcore's collection.
What happens if my proposal is shortlisted?
If your proposal is selected, we will call to arrange a virtual interview with you.

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