Samudra Kajal Saikia - Performance Art in Context | A Production Oriented Workshop on Performance Art

Venue: Vadehra Art Gallery
Dates: 24-26 July 2015
Timing: 11 AM to 5 PM

Samudra Kajal Saikia is a practitioner and researcher whose interest in performance art has led him back to the basic question of ‘what is Performance Art?’ and ‘how does it identify itself as an autonomous domain distinct from other form of practice?’ Through his own independent research, and engagement with the large community of performers through festivals, workshops, and collaborations, Samudra brings the focus back to the primary prisms of seeing, experiencing, encountering, reading, deciphering, perceiving, defining, documenting, memorizing, describing and understanding.

This workshop offered by FICA in collaboration with Samudra will thus focus on contextualising and re-contextualising performance art through creative exercises, reading, peer review and collaborative production. Through the modes of games and exercises the participants will be led to develop their own concepts and modes of praxis. All participants will be involved in both theoretical and practical work. The workshop will culminate in a public display/performance.  

Samudra Kajal Saikia is a practitioner of interdisciplinary art practices (including performance, public art and videos) and a writer. A master of Visual Arts, specialized in art history, and the founder Creative Director of Kathputlee Arts and Films, New Delhi. He is also engaged into a self-driven theatrical practice coined as the Disposable Theatre that works in multidisciplinary paradigms. He received the FICA Public Art Grant for 2010, and Ila Dalmia Research Grant for 2014 for research on Contemporary Indian Performance Art.

The FICA Master Class is a series designed for young artists who are looking to closely engage with an experienced practitioner through a set of workshops that explores his/her practice. These intensive learning modules focus on innovative approaches to diverse mediums and materials. They open up possibilities of conceptualizing and making through the process of research, reading, exploring material/mediums, collaboration and exchange. Each class has been designed around the practice of the artist who conducts the session and provides triggers to young practitioners to experiment and explore. The Master Class series will be held on a monthly basis between May and August 2015. 

The workshops will generally be week-long sessions, with 3-4 hours classes. Classes include both practice and theory. Basic materials for the classes will be provided. Participants will need to bring their own laptops/cameras as required.

The Master Class is part of FICA's larger educational programming. FICA’s educational outreach focuses primarily on two questions – how do we use the art resources that are available in a gallery/museum/library to engage better with the audience; and how can we use art education as an important cultural tool that can extend itself to everyday life? Each programme is thus tailored for a particular audience, developed in collaboration with practicing professionals, and creates a space for exchange and deeper engagement with the subject in hand. Participants are invited to share their work and open themselves to constructive feedback from their peer group. For any queries write to us at info@ficart.org