Making video art accessible

With its fourth show in a series, the VAICA festival of video art introduces the medium outside closed arts circuits

Making video art accessible

A still from Water Has Memory by Meera Devidayal

Video art isn't for everyone, or so we were made to think. It's also what artist and curator Bharati Kapadia discovered when she experimented with the medium herself. "It was for a group show at a gallery and the theme was 'text'. Initially I explored audio and then thought the video medium suited it best," she adds. She wanted to know what video artists in India were doing, so began looking them up. "I found none except on private and gallery websites. There were no archives," says the Mumbai-based Kapadia.

It is what led her to partner with co-curator Chandita Mukherjee of Comet Media Foundation and put together, a one-of-a-kind video art festival VAICA (Video art by contemporary Indian artists).

The fourth show in a series will feature 10 artists and 17 videos. Some of the participating names include Meera Devidayal, Navjot Altaf, Saba Hasan and Monali Meher.

Curators Bharati Kapadia; Chandita Mukherjee

The curatorial process Kapadia explains was also a response to the artwork itself, "One video leads to another, not necessarily thematically but through common binding features. For instance, Devidayal's Water Has Memory is followed by Altaf's Tana. The flow of the water and the weave ties them together," she says. The show aims to open up the world of video art to a general audience. "It is more conceptual and abstract, less to be understood and more to be experienced. It is like all art that produces a response," she says.

Free
On November 23, 6.30 pm
At G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture, G-5/A Laxmi Mills Estate, Shakti Mills Lane, Mahalaxmi.
Call 24909393

More video art

The Festival of Video art by Indian contemporary artists will close with a finale that will feature 13 videos. The artists here will be seen commenting on rising intolerance in the country through text, animation and graphics followed by a panel discussion.

Free
On November 30, 4 pm to 8 pm AT Godrej India Culture Lab, Godrej One, Vikhroli (East).
Call 25194889
Cost www.insider.in

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