Emerging Artist Award 2020 | Farah Mulla and Bhisaji Gadekar

The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) is pleased to announce the two recipients of the Emerging Artist Award (EAA) 2020: Farah Mulla and Bhisaji Gadekar. This Award is granted annually in collaboration with Pro Helvetia - The Swiss Arts Council, and seeks to promote young artists who are studying or practising in India, and demonstrate extraordinary skill and promise in the visual arts.

The jury for the award consisted of artist Reena Saini Kallat; artist and professor Sanchayan Ghosh; Akshay Pathak, Head of Pro Helvetia New Delhi; and Vidya Shivadas, Director, FICA. We received close to 400 applications in 2020, which went through an initial shortlisting before being passed on to the jury for their consideration. The jury was impressed with the range of practices evident in the applications received this year, and greatly appreciated the intensity and scope of enquiries presented. After long, careful deliberations over two meetings, the jury sifted through their individual shortlists of candidates and decided to announce two recipients for the Emerging Artist Award 2020.

Bhisaji Gadekar’s practice showed a keen engagement with performance that moved between multiple social and cultural spaces both as a form and process; Farah Mulla's works explored sound both as a physical and a mediated entanglement with time and space that is multisensory and participatory. The decision to felicitate both artists came with an acknowledgement of their strong, dynamic practices that reflect a continued dedication to the medium(s) they work with. Keeping with this sentiment, the jury agreed that the award would be split between Farah Mulla and Bhisaji Gadekar in the form of a research residency and an artist residency respectively.

The jury felt Bhisaji Gadekar’s practice built an energetic, inventive vocabulary around performance and the body, highlighting a persistent and critical exploration of publics and spaces. With a background in sculpture and an art practice that maintains a strong footing in Goa, functioning in collaboration with local artists and communities, Bhisaji experiments with articulations on and around gender and its performativity. The jury was also struck by the versatile nature of his mixed media installations that display a relationship to colonial influences in Goa. With subtle yet necessary commentaries on craftsmanship, artisanal livelihoods and cultural traditions, his work positions itself at the intersection of durational play, participatory experience, and extensive research.

Bhisaji Gadekar was born on January 9th, 1987 in Goa, India. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from Goa College of Art in 2012 and Master’s degree in Fine Art in the field of sculpture from Kala Bhavan, Santinikatan, West Bengal in 2014. He works predominantly in the medium of sculpture, simultaneously integrating other mediums like site specific installation and performance art. His endeavours in the field of sculpture has won him many accolades. He has been an active member of ‘Kolkata International Performance Art Festival’ (KIPAF) for seven years, and has performed as part of several performance art spaces and festivals. He has been actively working with HH Art Spaces, Goa for the last five years. Bhisaji lives and works in Goa and is presently engaged with the contemporary artists group: Goa Artists Collective.

Drawing from her background in science, Farah Mulla’s art practice investigates different media, pursuing themes around cognition, sensation and the affectivity of sound. The jury found her works displaying a strong conceptual framework around the visual and the aural, indulging in playful experiments on perception and the invisible agency of sound. Her multimedia installations create intimate interactions with viewers, bringing them into mutating environments that toy with human neurology and subjectivity. The jury was appreciative of the deep sensitivity present throughout her practice as well as her firm grounding in research-oriented approaches to art.

Farah Mulla is an artist and researcher based in Mumbai. Her background in science overlaps with her art practice that explores the perception of sound and its effects on human neurology and subjectivity. Often investigating different media, she uses the human voice, circuits, field recordings and other modes of inquiries to explore aspects of our listening experience and the invisible agency of sound via multiple modes of perception.

The Emerging Artist Award Extended Support Platform

We are happy to announce an extension of the opportunity offered by the FICA Emerging Artist Award in the year 2020-21. FICA is pleased to be collaborating with the Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation with the intention of encouraging and supporting a larger base of young Indian artists through a financial support grant: the Emerging Artist Award Extended Support Platform. Taking into account the need to bolster existing systems of support to ensure a continued espousal of the making and dissemination of emerging artistic practices, 20 artists were selected by a jury consisting of Reena Saini Kallat, Sanchayan Ghosh, Vidya Shivadas and Sheila Makhijani who highlighted participants who have been working actively in different parts of the country.

This platform will focus on providing financial support in the form of a grant of Rs 50,000 to a selection of 20 artists chosen from among applicants for the Emerging Artist Award in 2020. We are pleased to announce that the following artists were selected for the Emerging Artist Award Extended Support Platform:

The Extended Support Platform builds upon a key part of FICA’s work in the field of art practices and amplifies the potential of active and consistent collaborations with arts and educational institutions, initiating more infrastructural investment to support the visual arts in India. It will allow these artists to direct and utilise this grant in any way that they deem fit that supplements their ongoing work as art practitioners. This is also a recognition of their meritorious work in the field of art practice, highlighting their dedication to the medium(s) they work with as well as their continued emphasis on furthering and improving their expertise in the same.

The collaborating organisations:

Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia:
Pro Helvetia New Delhi is part of the Swiss Arts Council’s worldwide network of liaison offices. PHND supports and disseminates Swiss arts and culture in South Asia. It promotes cultural exchange, develops and nurtures long-term partnerships, initiates co-productions and supports residencies. For more information, visit www.prohelvetia.in.

The Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation was established in December 2015 in accordance with the vision of the acclaimed artist the late Mrinalini Mukherjee to carry forth the legacy of the Mukherjee family which include her parents Benode Behari Mukherjee and Leela Mukherjee. The contribution of the Mukherjees to the development of contemporary art in the country has few parallels. MMF’s primary aim is to preserve and promote the legacy of this unique family through exhibitions, research initiatives, publications and films. MMF is also committed to developing systems of support for art practitioners, educators, and art institutions, encouraging and augmenting a range of programmes, practices and processes in the Indian context.

Image captions:

Bhisaji Gadekar
1. 'She Talk Through Me,' Performance art, 5 hours durational, Goa Open Arts Festival Goa 2020
2. 'The Story of Absence in Presence,' Performance Art, Duration: Five days durational performance, Serendipity Art Festival Goa 2016

Farah Mulla
1. 'Crosstalk,' 2019, Dimensions: variable, Medium: Sound installation, Supported by Serendipity Arts Foundation
2. 'Windschatten,' 2016, Dimensions: 6ft Hemisphere, Medium: Kinetic sound sculpture, Supported by KYTA