Mrinalini Mukherjee Creative Arts Grant 2023-24: Announcing Recepient
The Mrinalini Mukherjee Creative Arts Grant 2023-24 grantee is Wenceslaus Mendes
Mendes will be developing his project"kalchi kodi – a fish-curry and rice story" under the grant.
"kalchi kodi – a fish-curry and rice story"
"'kalchi kodi' means yesterday’s fish curry in Konkani, this is a delicacy eaten in Goan homes as the spices in the curry marinate, pickle, and it becomes thick and creates a depth in flavour".
The project aims to investigate the impacts of climate change on the fishing community in Goa through an interdisciplinary and multidimensional approach and examine the ecological changes and impact through the materiality of consumption of our staple food. Here stories as narrative photodocumentary, audioscapes, essays and an artist book emerge in Goa, from the fishing ecosystem of labour, indigenous communities of artisans, crafts-persons, technologists and oral history keepers, in an endeavour to understand this "fleshiness of the world" within the paradigm of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) of automation, virtualisation, platformaisation, algorithms, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
The jury consisting of Belinder Dhanoa, Suresh BV and Sanchayan Ghosh found that Mendes’s project had the potential to activate multiple sets of enquiries, while keeping a strong focus on research and finding possibilities for an interdisciplinary approach to his practice. The jury also felt that his engagement with the sensorial allowed for interesting ways to complicate the ethnographic method of working with communities, and to ground the archive. Read more about the Jury Members.
Wenceslaus Mendes is a (documentary) filmmaker, who works with video and technology in theatre, performance, conceptual and multi-medium installation art projects. His practice lies within indigenous communities through shared concerns of land and water, environment, sustainability and climate change; documenting practices, oral culture and processes of ethno-technologies. He engages with the politics of food, consumption and the processes of 'knowledge' in its making and dissemination through building sensoriums. For him, local (geospatial and temporal) and indigenous knowledge are essential and critical to building an inclusive and sustainable future.
The Mrinalini Mukherjee Creative Arts Grant is inspired by the boldness and ingenuity of Mrinalini Mukherjee's practice, who constantly experimented with materials and concepts, unhampered by dominant trends, while developing fresh aesthetic assertions. Initially trained as a painter, her love for the three-dimensional form led her to explore new materials and methods throughout her life. Informed by diverse references, from traditional Indian and European sculpture, folk art, textiles and crafts, and the ideology of modernism, she developed a complex visual and conceptual language that didn’t adhere to easy categorization. After working intensively with fibre for more than two decades she made a conscious shift towards ceramics and bronze, pushing the envelope in terms of creative process, form, meaning and concept.
Growing up with artists parents Benode Behari and Leela Mukherjee, Mrinalini continued working with the deep commitment to creative excellence and innovation that was central to their lives as artists and teachers. Like them she drew inspiration from not only the great masters, but remained aware of the versatility and creative potential of living traditions and always looked to nature for inspiration. Even as established artists they remained lifelong learners, studying and honing their skills every step of the way.
The Mrinalini Mukherjee Creative Arts Grant is an annual visual arts grant aimed at supporting the work of an Indian artist/collective who has shown consistent engagement with shifting contexts within contemporary art, and is looking to experiment and push their practice beyond the familiar. The grant will enable them to explore fresh ideas and develop a new body of work, and continue contributing to the field of visual arts with greater creative, technical and intellectual proficiency.
The grant recognises the need for artists to take risks and try out new ideas, expressions and methods, as they make material and conceptual transitions in their practice.
Open to Indian artists in their mature phase of work - i.e., with 15 years and more of practice (not including graduate/post graduate years).
Applying artists can submit proposals, with budget and timeline, for projects with a maximum budget of Rs. 10 lakhs.