ArTranslation is hosting a residency programme, wherein artists from India and France will work together on an art installation. During the programme, which started on 2nd December and will go on till the 16th, the artists will work on an installation in the experimental garden of a college. Félix Duclassan, Nicolas Gerodou, Alice Aucuit, Jean Marie Cathelain and Sylvie Rimlinger, from France, and Supriya Menon from Auroville, India.
The residency will focus on the collective design of a structure after a study of the place in which it is set. The finished structure will reflect the surrounding locale, its settlements and vegetation. The structure is expected to be built using materials procured locally including plants, branches, dead wood, pebbles and other found objects, and will incorporate techniques like painting, plastering, ligature and weaving. The resulting structure will be decorated with frescoes designed collectively by the artists.
ArTranslation, a collective based in France, uses contemporary art forms like Land Art and the Support Surface movement to express its founding principle of relational ecology i.e. the relation of human beings to the ecological cycle. Relational ecology is based on the principle that human beings do not stand at the top of the hierarchy of life – in fact, there exists no such hierarchy – and that they are but one part of the complex web of life.
Artistic practice at ArTranslation is founded on the principle of the individual, while being an integral part, also being one of the surrounding elements. The result of such an approach is that artworks are born not out of one mind but out of the pot of collective ideas. The intention here is to redefine the act of creation in such a way that the artist’s ego is dissolved in the process.
Supriya, an Auroville ceramic artist, is now in Réunion Islands participating in this residency. We wish her well!
