CHANDER HAAT
Kolkata, West Bengal – 2015:
Chander Haat, based on the fringes of south Kolkata’s Sursana area is a not-for-profit organisation and a dedicated platform for community based art practices. It was founded in 1984 by Tarun Dey, visual artist and performer, who opened his house as a mentoring space to young and emerging artists to come exchange ideas and create work. Now located in a 25000 square feet space with studios and exhibition areas, the organisation has pivoted into an active hub for art and cultural activities.
Chander Haat attempts to bring art out of the gallery space with its niche-markets and specific viewership, and place it in the community. It supports experimentation and innovation in ideas and art forms that may be alternative or informed by interactions with rural art in their creative process.
The organisation aims to stimulate the artist to integrate questions of cultural identity,community, natural resources and ecology into her/his own practices while exposing the regional population to outside ideas and art. The platform does not restrict art to just conventional mediums such as painting and sculpture, but is open to new genres and innovative multimedia tools like installation, video art and performance art.
Chander Haat regularly organises interactive workshops, seminars, and projects in collaboration with the community. Its artist-in-residence program has been running since 2015, and provides opportunities to artists, academicians, and curators for reflection, research, presentation and/or production. The residency encourages the exchange of practice and culture between the artists and her/his surrounding environment through explorations in new materials and experiences. It spans from a week to several months and involves meaningful and multilayered exchanges in art and ideas by immersion into the local culture.
Text Courtesy : Space118
Image Courtesy : Chander Haat