Creative Interruptions is collaborating with Preet Nagar (http://preetnagarresidency.in/), the home of the 83 year-old progressive Punjabi literary magazine, Preet Lahri. The home of a utopian literary project which witnessed the impact of Partition first-hand (being situated a few kilometres from the new Indo-Pak border) will offer a temporary home for a group of artists who will respond to issues of memories and loss across borders.

 

Meet our Residents

Taha Ahmad is a photographer based in India. He was born in Lucknow, in 1994. He developed an interest in Documentary photography while pursuing his bachelor’s degree. He feels photography has a strong influence in creating and developing discourse for the future. His photographs are framed in a way that preserves their reality, which he feels is undergoing an everlasting change. Taha Ahmad has been the recipient of The Documentary Project Fund/Award 2018, Toto-Tasveer Award for Photography 2018, Sahapedia Frames Photography Grant 2018 and the Neel Dongre Grant/Award for Excellence in Photography 2016-17. He has worked with WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) over the DST Core Project and has been a part of a travelling photo exhibition organized by Girl Count, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and UN India. His work has been published by Invisible Photographer Asia, The Sunday Guardian, Times Of India, DELO, VEČER, LIBERATION, Social Documentary Network (SDN), The Quint, Asian News International (ANI), Mojarto NDTV, News Nation Channel, Dodho Magazine, IZ fotografevi magazine, Sahapedia, The Diplomat, Homegrown, MUSÉE Magazine, Better Photography Magazine, Platform Magazine, Fountain Ink Magazine, Asian Age, Millennium Post, SCROLL IN, Art Arcade, Business Standard, Edge of Humanity, Photo Mail, Black+White Photography Magazine, Neocha Magazine, THE PHOTO ACADEMY Magazine, Quartz India, Tasveer Journal, PHOTODIVISION, Artpil, etc. His works has been exhibited at the Indian Photo Festival (IPF) Hyderabad India 2017, Eyes on Main Street Wilson Outdoor Photo Festival North Carolina United States of America 2018, Festival Influences Indiennes Angers France 2018, Addis Foto Fest Ethiopia Africa 2018, ‘Something Black Something White’ Annual exhibition of Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival 2017 and has been screened at the Photography Festival Maribor, Slovenia 2017, Odesa.Batumi Photo Days 2017 Georgia and Lostgen Contemporary Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur as part of the show ‘Realities’ showcasing the works of South-Asian Photographers. His work has been a part of the initiative and exhibition ‘Photography on a Postcard’ organized by the Print Space Gallery, London, UK. He has received a Nominee Award (Category- Photojournalism) at the second edition of the International Photogrvphy Grant 2017 London UK and has been shortlisted for the Lucie Scholarship USA.

 

 

Kanza Fatima is a photographer/artist based in Delhi, India. Born and brought up in the country’s capital, she is an indigenous photographer working over her own community, people and contemporary women issues. As a women photographer she tries to create images in concern with women issues, in and beyond the Muslim community. Kanza Fatima has worked with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) over the DST Core Project and has co-curated Neel Dongre Grant/ Award for Excellence in Photography’s exhibition 2017 under ace photographer Aditya Arya. Fatima has exhibited her work ‘Women of Muharram’ at the Eyes on Main Street Wilson Outdoor Photo Festival 2018 based in North Carolina United States of America, Addis Foto Fest Ethiopia Africa 2018, Kuala Lumpur Photo Festival Malaysia, Print Space Gallery London UK, IGNCA India, Jamini Roy Gallery India, etc. She has been published by Yahoo News, Photojournalism Now, Platform Magazine, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sheba Remy Kharbanda is an autodidact video artist, filmmaker, oral historian, storyteller and metaphysician. Born in London to Sikh immigrants from the Punjab and now residing in Brooklyn, NY. Kharbanda’s approach to life is multidirectional, rooted in the possibilities offered up by the liminal space. It is from the dance of the Sun and the Moon, the archetypal masculine and feminine, that she takes guidance. The fundamental goal of Kharbanda’s work is to offer a bridge between the seen and unseen, between the tangible and the intangible and in so doing, to reassert the value of balance and harmony in the world. Her video art, at times confessional, performative and auto-biographical, has been shown at the Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn, NY, the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi, India, at the CIMA symposium in Kolkata, India, the Southbank Centre in London, UK and the Caos Art Gallery in Venice, Italy. Her short films and videos have been screened globally and her memoir writing published in a ground-breaking anthology as well as in the world wide web. In Kharbanda’s former life as a grassroots human rights worker, she co-founded a research collaborative, co-published and contributed research towards numerous public policy reports and conducted participatory action research, oral history and self-portrait workshops across the United States. She maintains a Metaphysics practice in Brooklyn NY and beyond and regularly hosts lunar-themed gatherings in her home.

 

Born in Mauritius in 1962, Krishna Luchoomun holds an M.A in fine arts from the ex-USSR Academy of Arts. He lives and work in Mauritius. In 2003 together with some artists friends he initiated “pARTage”, an artist’s-led art organization working for the promotion of contemporary art in Mauritius. He is the leader of the group and is currently working as lecturer at the MGI School of fine arts. He has participated in a series of exhibitions and residencies in different countries around the world.

Because of its colonial past, Mauritius is an island with a very complex social structure. Since my early childhood, I have been exposed to different customs and traditions and this has helped shape my awareness of the world, of what it means to be human and of the innate need that most of us have to connect – physically, emotionally and spiritually – with other human beings and with the natural world. This sensitivity is at the heart of my practice. Working in a variety of media including video, installations, photography, performance and painting, I use clothing not only as a basic material, but essentially as a means of artistic expression to revisit both slavery and indentureship to explore issues pertaining to Identity, multiculturalism and nationhood. And linking these to the reality of today’s world in relation to life, culture, economy and politics of Mauritian society.

 

 

 


Raghavendra Rao K.V graduated from Ken School of Art in Bangalore, India in 1990. He has taken part in several residencies including: Còmhla – International Artists’ Workshop, Scotland, PARTage – International Artists’ workshop in Mauritius, and ‘Ten Years Ten Artists’ – Residency and group show at Gasteatelier Krone, Switzerland. In 2014, his paintings were exhibited in the curated show ‘Ruptures in Arrival: Art in the Wake of the Komagata Maru’ at Surrey Art Gallery, BC. Most recently he curated a site specific show titled ‘Trauma Memory and the Story of Canada’ as part of a larger project by the South Asian Canadian Histories Association funded by Canada 150. He is a Research Associate with Center for India, South Asia Research at University of British Columbia. Prior to coming to Canada he was a core faculty member for fourteen years at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, one of India’s leading Art and Design institutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ikroop Sandhu is a storyteller. Using the medium of drawing and animation she retells stories embedded in her inherited cultural identity. Her comfort zone is at the intersection of the material and the mystic, a place where both the pragmatic and the whimsical can meet. She is in constant search of tall tales and poor jokes.

She works and lives in New Delhi, and sometimes Dharamsala.

 

 

 

 

 

Samia Singhis an artist and a designer. She was born in Amritsar, Punjab (1986). Her parents run the 83 old progressive literary Punjabi magazine Preet Lari.

Samia studied Visual Communication at Srishti, Bangalore, India (2004-09) and worked as the Associate Art Director for Tehelka, a reputed political news magazine from 2010-12.

She has also worked as a Visual Conceptualiser for the Sikh History Museum in Punjab, India.

She studied Printmaking in Il Bisonte in Florence, Italy (2013). In 2014, Samia was invited by the city council of Carballo, La Coruña, Spain as a participating artist in the year long street art festival. From 2016-18 Samia worked as the Creative Director for No. 3 Clive Road, a tea company based in New Delhi, India. In August 2018 Samia was invited to participate in Door to Asia, a design residency supported by the Japan Foundation which focuses on helping businesses that have suffered in the 2011 Tsunami.

Samia is also part of a Delhi based band called Ikigai. Samia works across digital and analog techniques and attempts to bring the viewer closest to the essence of the subject in focus with maximum impact and a touch of the poetic.

 

Ratika Singh graduated from Srishti School of Art Design, and Technology as a Filmmaker(2014). She minored in Memory- Lab studies and has worked extensively with different communities with singular and collective memory as a resource as well as theme for her projects. Her collaborative final project under memory lab was exhibited at the Kochi- Muziris Bienalle (2012).

She has independently written and directed a short fiction film Basheera (2014) based on her grandfather’s writings (screened at International Association of Women in Radio and Television, 2015.) Presently, Ratika is directing a short film about a Tibetan family in exile.

With respect to her grandfather and great-grandfather’s legacy as Punjabi writers and visionaries, she set up Preet nagar Residency (2014) – an artist residency in the historic village of Preet Nagar, Punjab, which she runs along with her family. Her Parents run the historic Punjabi magazine ‘Preet Lari’.

Since 2016, Ratika has worked as a photographer and holds photography workshops regularly. She works with communities in rural India, and was the Project Designer, and Lead instructor to Photography workshops supported by Canada Funds for Local Initiatives, PGIMER (Post Graduate Institution of Medical Education and Research) & MBCT (Mehar Baba Charitable Trust) Bassi Pathana, Punjab- and conducted 12 workshops in 12 villages teaching photography skills as a tool of empowerment, and expression for violence against women. (2017)

She has exhibited her works as part of the ‘Into the Woods’ exhibition curated by 4Tables, Bir, Himachal Pradesh (2017). She was recently selected for a workshop at the Obscura Photography Festival in Malaysia (2018) and presented a project on a fishing village community.

 

 

Gavati Wad is an artist based in Bangalore, India. She is interested in questions of identity in the contexts of gender, domestic environment and the nation- state. Her work responds to tropes and standards present in commercial media practices such as those of the photo studio, television broadcasting and political propaganda. Through self portraiture and performance, she analyses the devices essential in their construction to bring them under a dialogue of critique.