Khursheed Ahmad

Practise Khursheed created a photo story while at TIFA and also performed some impromptu performances in collaboration with other artists at TIFA. Khursheed referenced books from the TIFA library by Sonia Khurana, C Krishnaswamy, and Navjyot Atlaf to name a few. He went for a few site visits and explored some city museums during his time in Pune. 

For his studio visit with Ashutosh Potdar, Khursheed shared his previous work and explained his process. Ashutosh prodded him to further consider the outcome he wishes to see from these performances. C Krishnaswamy, was invited for a performance at TIFA and Khrusheed spent some time assisting him in his performance. Khursheed also shared his practice with Krishnaswamy who in turn shared his feedback and also his experiences and various performances.

For the open studios at TIFA, Khursheed performed ‘Karyakarm Kashmir‘ using photography, installation and the body. Unfortunately, we were not aware of the self-harm he had planned in his performance. One of the audience members almost fainted, and we felt it was not ethical on our part to not announce a disclaimer prior to the performance. We also had to urgently seek medical help as his wound was bleeding and he was to travel to Goa later that night. We wish he had cleared communicated with us regarding this. 

Interactions

Khursheed is full of positive energy and he had some great interactions with the team and visiting artists. In spite of a few communication lags, we had a great interaction with him and were very grateful to him for his sharing stories from Kashmir.

Maxwell Callaghan

Wandering as Re-collective Collage | Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan The artist’s presentation by Gabriel will screen and discuss a short experimental film which features a wander/walk he took with Hanif, a 22-year-old Somali refugee who currently lives in the far northern reaches of Finland. 

Gabriel first met Hanif in Delhi, India in 2012. In 2014, Hanif and his family moved to Finland after the Delhi UNHRC office (United Nations Human Rights Commission) brokered their asylum petition. Gabriel and Hanif’s filmic walk through the streets and parks of Oulu, three years after they last spent time with each other, is a collage of recollections of Hanif’s experiences in India, their shared experiences in Delhi, his remembrances of Somalia, and his recent experiences in Finland.  

The filmic walk or wander they took reveals the non-linear and affective resonances of displacement, the ways in which motion creates a recollection of transnational experience and layers it onto the terrain and temporality of pedestrian errance. The walk as a method of audio-visual elicitation suggests that if we take wandering seriously, experimental forms of narration can emerge that give the layered resonances of collage pride of place over linear narrative forms.  

Over the next year, Gabriel will be working with collage as method to develop a story about the lives of African students living in Pune. In this project, collage emerges in the overlaps and resonances produced through the melding of archival material, documentary footage, and fictional accounts. He uses this method of collage to explore the historical connections, contemporary networks, and fantastical dreamspaces that lie between India and several African nations that are animated through Indian popular cinema.  

While in Pune, Gabriel is looking to work closely with members of the African diaspora in Pune, especially students, to collectively build this collaborative project.

The Touch And Voice Of Everything | Lisa Premke An acoustic Installation and Moving Sculptures

During Lisa’s research in Pune, she was immediately struck by how excessively the public space are used. “I listen to the sounds of the city and find my materials within it.” Listening with intention, the constant traffic noise becomes an orchestra of it’s own, the sweeping of every floor surface sounds different and towels, brooms or metal pipes can become instruments.

All the objects are slowly moving, their sounds are quiet, and therefore they are inviting you to come closer, listen carefully and feel the proximity of the material. The pieces are the simplifications, isolations and abstractions of familiar materials, movements and sounds. They are reflecting on the impressions that she has made of Pune, playfully questioning links between the multitude of singular players of the public space.

Grumbling Vehicles & Sprouting Buildings | Atsushi Fukunaga An acoustic Installation

The city centre of Pune is prospering and experiencing continuous growth. One can feel the pulsating energy of the people in the city. There is also a sense of freedom from an attitude that is not bound by regulations. On the other hand, the pace of transportation and infrastructure development is lagging and together with the rapidly increasing growth, contributes to noise in the city center—the focus of Atsushi's research.

He examines the noise around Pune's Central Station. Though noise is a common issue in many cities, the main causes of the noise in this area are the transportation system, which uses old vehicles such as buses and rickshaws, and inadequate traffic regulations. This also contributes to air pollution and health problems. It is perhaps the reason one is now unable to hear the sounds of the numerous birds and animals that once inhabited the place.

Researching the environmental sounds of cities provokes Atsushi to think about the relationship between the people who live there and the sounds in the city. To explore this issue, she invites local residents to mimic, with their own voices, the sounds of daily life. By mimicking the sounds of a city very much familiar to them using their own voices, they can acutely perceive changes in the environment that they unconsciously hear.