Craft & Community Development Foundation x India Art Fair (Parallel)
Image of the Poster that was designed and used for the exhibition
India art fair is a leading platform that creates a space for the discovery of modern and contemporary art from South Asia. The art fair combines contemporary visual art with modern practitioners and ingenious artistic traditions. The fair positions the voice of the art, the artist and the stories they carry as the heart of its core values. The programmes at the fair bring together “galleries and institutions, private foundations and arts charities, artists’ collectives and national museums, cultural events and festivals”, which enables the art enthusiast audience at the local and international level to get involved in understanding the cultural history and artistic evolution of the region.CCDF’s first participation at the fair was during the 2020 edition when the organization was in a relatively nascent stage; we had had our residency for only about 6 months.
We had just started experimenting with colour palettes and contemporary motifs and when the opportunity came in the form of the prestigious art fair we were extremely happy to showcase our work with the artisans of central India’s Gondwana belt. The exposure and appreciation we received during the previous edition of the fair served as a great inspiration for us to only move ahead in our journey. We were extremely excited and certain that this participation in the art fair will only help us grow further, little did we know however that the entire world is going to come to a standstill and it would affect the livelihood of traditional artisans so badly that many of them would even stop creating art.
It was a tough time for the artisans, but we gathered all our bleak hopes, put them together in this project and continued working on it despite hardships. This continued urge to create new and take care of the livelihood of the tribal artisans along the way has been a big impetus and push for us to keep striving in the direction that we are. And so when this physical edition of IAF 2022 came along after a two-year-long hiatus, it was only natural that we were more than eager to participate. This exhibition was even more pertinent for us this time around because it helps us create a space to build a niche for the kind of art we want to create art which at its core is about storytelling, art which is as much about the artist as it is about the art, and art which also resonates with the art that the fair seeks to promote and provide exposure to. A statement from fair director Jaya Asokan while addressing the media reiterates the same sentiment, “The team and I are thrilled for India Art Fair to return in its physical format, and to celebrate with the artists, galleries and partners who have taken the region’s arts scene from strength to strength.”
We also used the exhibition as an opportunity to showcase the very first 3D sculpture of our new flagship project, “The Gond Tiger Project”. As we design more of our 3D sculptures under this new project and experiment more with our artist's existing ability to paint compelling stories, we plan to exhibit far and beyond, to new unexplored markets in India and even bigger markets internally. We eagerly hope to exhibit our project in various prestigious Indian and international exhibitions. It was also important that we showcased our pieces for ‘IAF Parallel’ programmes that ran simultaneously throughout the country at galleries and art spaces, encouraging young people to learn about art in their own cities. Our art comes from the heartland of India and it deserves to have a space of appreciation and reverence there as much as it needs acceptance from the art hubs of the country. The exhibition also opens the blinders for the elitist art market to excellent tribal art platforms like ours.
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Our work @ CCDF
We at CCDF, for our flagship projects ‘The Gondwana Art Project’ and ‘The Gond Tiger Project’, collaborate with traditional tribal artists. These artists, who are selected through an assessment of the quality of work and their current economic status, are taken in for a residency programme and are provided with a stipend during the period of their residency with the organization. Mr Sundeep Bhandari, our founder sees it as an opportunity to integrate traditional indigenous artistic capabilities into cutting-edge contemporary art.
This article is authored for Craft and Community Development Foundation by Shreya Seth.