Residency in collaboration with the Alliance Française of Madras and the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP).
About the Project
Travelling Plants is a transdisciplinary art project led by the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai, in collaboration with the Alliance Française of Madras and the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP).
The central focus of Travelling Plants is the Herbarium at the Institut Français de Pondicherry (IFP) which was established by Pierre Legris, a member of the Forestry Commission of France in 1956. Over the years, its growth has been propelled by the dedicated efforts of successive researchers and students, as well as acquisitions from various herbaria. In order to build awareness of this space, with relation to contemporary socio-cultural, political and environmental concerns globally, the idea of creating an interactive project with artists, researchers, scientists and others came about.
The herbarium contains over 27,875 specimens belonging to 257 families and 4,700 species. It has many specimens, of trees particularly, from the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, as well as other regions of India and the world. The HIFP includes about 880 endemic species of trees, shrubs, herbs and climbers, and is rich of 7 type specimens - which include angiosperms, gymnosperms, pteridophytes, fungi, and algae are organized according to scientific classification.
Five artists invited from India, Sri Lanka, France and Germany will stay in Pondicherry and study the Herbarium through March 2024, with the idea of exploring varied lenses (personal and collective) while looking at biodiversity, and discussing new and inclusive ways to deal with our environment. The history of what is migratory and/or indigenous, pertaining to all life forms, has shaped the way civilisations have grown, evolved, and even disappeared. Colonisation and its aftermath can be studied as one part of this history that rearranged resources across trade routes and lands of conquest. As they engage with the material, the artists will be supported (by the curator, in-house researchers, and other facilitators) in finding ways to literally and conceptually unlock the stories that appeal to them and present these layers of understanding through their individual practices.
CURATOR: LINA VINCENT
CURATOR: LINA VINCENT
Lina is an independent art historian and curator with two decades experience in arts management. Since 2009, Lina has worked on multi-layered projects that highlighted plural approaches, with a focus on inclusivity and collaboration in public arts engagement. It has resulted in interconnected bodies of research and curation, that bring together diverse voices, modes of expression, and interfaces for dialogue. The focus areas of her research extend to projects with arts education, printmaking history and practice, the documentation of living traditions and folk arts in India, and environmental consciousness in the arts. She sees herself as a mediator and culture worker, connecting dots, ideas and people. In 2020, she registered a consultancy- LVAC- as a means to engage formally with a broader sphere of organisations and collaborators.
Her ongoing engagements include ‘Goa Familia’, archival photography project with Serendipity Arts Foundation and ‘Sunaparanta Art Initiator Lab’, Goa (S.A.I.L) mentoring project. She led the development of ‘Sandooka – The Living Museum of Kodava Culture,’ a virtual project commissioned by India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) with whom she concluded an Archival Museum Fellowship for Goa Chitra Museum (2018-19). She is Associate Curator with ARTPORT_making waves – global arts program for climate-action. She is associated as Visiting Faculty at the School of Design and Innovation, RV University, Bangalore and Visiting Professor at the Trans-Disciplinary University (TDU) Bangalore. She has curated numerous exhibitions with galleries across India and contributes to publications on art history and contemporary cultural practices. Lina has a BFA in printmaking from Bangalore University and MFA in Art History from the same institution.
Danushka Marasinghe(Sri Lanka) is a Sri Lankan artist whose creative focus revolves around moving images in expanded formats. He has a Bachelors in Multimedia Arts and a Masters in Art and Design. His artistic practice delves deeply into surveillance culture, the legacies of violence, and the commodification of images within the spectacle economy. Marasinghe's work incorporates sculptural and sonic elements, forming an expressive vocabulary that underscores his philosophical inquiries that pivot around the fundamental ontological yearning for understanding and connection through the idea of the image. He has participated in art events, exhibitions and residencies in Sri Lanka and internationally.
Karolina Grzywnowicz (Germany) is a Berlin-based visual artist whose work bridges contemporary art, research, and activism. Her works deal with plants in social and political context, often of a violent nature. She perceives landscape as a living archive in which traces of past events are recorded. Her methodology involves working with specialists across various disciplines e.g. botanists, soil researchers, hydrologists and local people to allow for a space of interaction and exchange of knowledge. She is interested in the practices of weak resistance, everyday activities, seemingly unnoticed gestures that have the power to resist oppression. She works in various media: installation, sculpture, film; she creates situations and art interventions. Her works have been exhibited widely. She holds a degree in Comparative Literature.
Rashmimala (India) is an artist based in Varodara, who engages with the interface of ecology and art – drawing from a variety of sources such as museum collections, archival documents, academic scholarship, field data and the genre of botanical art. She has exhibited widely, participating in both group and solo shows, one of which focused on representing minor local plants along the genre of botanical illustrations, natural history documentations and historical anecdotes. She holds a Bachelor’s and Master's degree in Painting, in addition to a Masters in Art Criticism.
Waylon D’souza (India)is a Goa-based transdisciplinary artist and designer with a research-driven practice, collating principles of education, philosophy, and culture to iterate pan-disciplinary experiments in sustainability science. He has trained in a matrix of symbiotic disciplines including fine arts, animation, aquaponics, permaculture, and industrial design at various institutes. Waylon’s experimental practice moves into varied mediums, forms of expression, and articulations, reorganising elements to produce novel manifestations. His practise proposes environmental solutions through materially symbolic, and highly conceptual visual works.
Wendy Therméa (Reunion Island, France) is a visual artist who lives and works in Reunion Island, where she spent her childhood surrounded by nature. Influenced and marked by the diversity of its territories, whether terrestrial or aquatic, she engages in a dialogue between the landscape and her own body. In this way, she constantly questions the link(s) we can create with our environment. Combining metaphor and poetry, the artist draws inspiration from her own history, the cycle of life and the movements of nature. She works mainly with video installations inviting the viewer to a sensory experience, whether auditory, olfactory and/or visual. She obtained a DNSEP, a master’s equivalent degree in the arts in 2022, participating in a group exhibition and two-month residency the same year.
