Marupakkam Online Film Festival : Artists Cinema

Artists Cinema : Curated by CS Venkiteswaran

On 26 Oct - 2 November; 12 am to 12 am / Facebook Event 

Interaction via Zoom with the artists / filmmakers on 30, 31 Oct and 1 November @ 6 pm

Curator's Note : C S Venkiteswaran 

Moving image practices, especially since the advent of digital technologies, are expanding and enveloping every field. Today the State and Capital constitute the two biggest image producers and users in the world, for their panoptic surveillance cameras, fixed in every public and open spaces – streets, malls, parks, pubs, offices, transport stations, public transports etc - are constantly at work recording and collating images of everything and everyone passing in front of them. What does this torrent of images amount to and do to us? Today, how does an image-artist work with, through and in this flood of visual information and narratives? How does and can the artist capture Life from the Flow?

These films by artists working in various mediums try to grapple with the very texture, tone, flux and flow of images; they ponder and meditate, interrogate and excavate, counterpose and juxtapose visuals to invite the viewer to enter into certain kinds of intensities of interaction with images: it could be their profound concern with nature, interrogations about hegemonic notions that rule our lives and dreams, explorations into other modes of sexual orientations and experiences, excavations into and through time, reinvention of space etc.

Free from the dictates of conventional narratives, beginning-middle-end structures, meaning-making compulsions and the market impositions about audience expectations, these image essays invite the viewers into exciting journeys into other realms of perception and experiences of the visual.

The Artists 

Vipin Vijay

A graduate of Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute, Kolkata, multiple award winning Indian screenwriter, video artist, film academic, producer and filmmaker, Vipin Vijay’s works are made under strict independent codes and defy any categorization merging film, documentary, essay, and fiction all into one. His works portray the never-ending interfaces between times, mythical and historic; technologies, new and old; ways of living, past and present, that cut across and connect cinema and reality, memory and image, dream and experience, man and machine. 

His works include, The Egotic World (2000),Khurasyadhara(2001), Hawamahal (2004), Video Game (2006), A Flowering Tree (2007), Broken Glass, Torn Film (2007), A Perfumed Garden (2008), Chitrasutram / The Image Threads (2010), Venomous Folds (2012), Feet upon the Ground (2014), Prathibhasam (2018), Anthropocene Relooked(2018) Small-scale Societies (2018). His films have won short Tiger Award – Rotterdam, Best Film – Signs Du Nuit, Paris, National Film Awards, India (twice), Grand Jury Award MIFF, Golden pearl HIFF, Kodak Award, Kerala State Film & TV Award (thrice), Padmarajan Puraskaram, IDPA Award (thrice), Incredible India Award- IFFI Goa, John Abraham National Awards (thrice), Hassankutty Award- IFFK 2010. Apart from widely shown in film festivals across the world, like Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary, Oberhausen, São Paulo, Nantes, Montreal, Japan, Vladivostok , his works have also been exhibited in art museums like Serpentine Gallery, London, Ullens Centre for Contemporary art (UGCA) Beijing. He is a recipient of the Sanskriti Award for cultural achievement in filmmaking in India. The prestigious Oberhausen International Film Festival, Germany 2015 honored him with a specially curated retrospective, showcasing his works. Back home, his works were showcased in the ‘Film Maker in Focus’ section by the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy at the IDSFFK 2017. He currently works as Professor and heads the film direction & screenwriting department at the K R Narayanan National Institute of Visual Science & Arts, Govt. of Kerala, India.

Parvathi Nayar 

Chennai-based visual artist and writer Parvathi Nayar is known for her multidisciplinary art, centred on complex drawings, video artworks, installations, photography, paintings. Parvathi’s art talks about different engagements with our environments, and the philosophies of inhabiting them.

Her solos which often feature her video works include Atlas of Reimaginings (2018, Chennai), At the Heart of the Question (2018, Singapore), Haunted by Waters (2017, Chennai), Dissonant Images: Drawing in Time, (2016, New Delhi), The Ambiguity of Landscapes (2014, Chennai), I sing the body electric (2008, Mumbai), Win Lose Draw (2007, Singapore) and Drawing is a Verb (Singapore, 2006).

Some of her installations, including those in public spaces, include The Fluidity of Horizons (drawings & sound), Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014/15 curated by Jitish Kallat, Invite/Refuse at the Indo-German DAMned Art project curated by Florian Matzner and Ravi Agarwal (2018); Gender Fluid (Kochi 2018) and Reflecting (on) The Inhabited Crossroads (Kochi, 2016) as part of TheHashtag#Collective of which Parvathi is a founder member; WAVE (2018, trash art installation) Chennai; The Music of the Spheres (Chennai Mathematical Institute, 2016). She pioneered the form of “drawn sculpture” as in the seminal 20-foot high drawing A Story of Flight, Jai He art programme, T2 Terminal, Mumbai international airport.

Her works have been collected by institutions such as the Singapore Art Museum, BMW, HCL, The Sotheby’s Art Institute, The Australia India Institute and Deutsche Bank. Films on Parvathi include Nocturnes by ARTHISTORY+ (2020), "Artists of Chennai: Parvathi Nayar" by photographer/filmmaker Saravana Kumar (2015); ‘V-ideo Ideas Worth Sharing’ Website (Knowledge Partner: Mohile Parikh Centre), http://www.v-ideo.art/videos/176 (2017) Parvathi Nayar Artist Interview at http://kochimuzirisbiennale.org/artist-interview-parvathi-nayar/(2014)

Parvathi is a writer and poet, and commentator on contemporary culture. She was a TedxChennai speaker (“Seeing the world through Different Lenses”, 2016) and and TedxMumbai (The Secret Ingredient of Creativity Mumbai, 2018).

Parvathi received her Masters in Fine Art from Central St Martins College of Art and Design, London, on a Chevening scholarship.

Murali Cheeroth

Murali Cheeroth is a visual artist, BFA and MFA from Shantinikethan, West Bengal.

Murali Cheeroth has exhibited in over 100 significant shows across the globe. He has also taught in CEPT, Ahmedabad, Kanoria Centre for Art, Ahmedabad, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Bangalore and Chennai.Some of his major exhibitions include ‘passage to India’ – the New Indian Art from the Frank Cohen collection in UK (2009); Indian Art summit in New Delhi, SH contemporary Art Fair, Shanghai, Chicago Art Fair and London Art Fair in 2010, Colombo Beinnale , 2012, Chalo India – A group show of Contemporary Indian Artists at Basel Art Centre, Basel, Switzerland, Feb 2014. Participated in 2nd Pula Ketam International Art Festival at Pulaketam, Malyasia. Theertha Art Residency, Colombo. India Australia Artist Retreat, Australia India institute, Melbourne University, Australia .Art Residency and show, Gallerie Christian Hosp, Triol, Austria.

Ashish Avikunthak

Ashish Avikunthak has been making films for the past 25 years. In 2014, He was named Future Greats 2014 by Art Review. Its citation succinctly describes his films:
“In an artworld where an increasing number of critics are arguing that much globalised art takes the form of hollowed-out visual Esperanto, Avikunthak’s works insist on an Indian epistemology while utilising a rigorously formal visual language that is clearly aware of Western avant-garde practices such as those of Andrei Tarkovsky and Samuel Beckett. These are self-consciously difficult works that are filmed in a self-consciously beautiful way”.


His films have been shown worldwide in film festivals, galleries and museums. Notable screenings were at the Tate Modern, London, Centre George Pompidou, Paris, Taipei Biennial 2012, Shanghai Biennial 2014, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, along with London, Locarno, Rotterdam, and Berlin film festivals among other locations. He has had retrospective of his works at Wolf Kino, Berlin (2019), Kino Klub, Split, Croatia (2019), Pungent Film Series, Athens, Greece (2018), Centre for Moving Image Arts, Bard College (2015), Apeejay Arts Gallery, New Delhi (2015), Rice University (2014), Signs Festival, Trivandrum (2013), Festival International Signes de Nuit, Paris (2012), Yale University (2008), and National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai (2008) and Les Inattendus, Lyon (2006).

In 2011 he was short listed for the Skoda Prize for Indian Contemporary Art.

He has published scholarly works in Contributions to Indian Sociology, Indian Economic and Social History Review, Journal of Material Culture, Journal of Social Archaeology, The Moving Image, Art India, Deep Focus among other locations. He has a PhD in Cultural and Social Anthropology from Stanford University and has earlier taught at Yale University. He is now an Associate Professor in Film/Media at Harrington School of Communication, University of Rhode Island. 

Riyas Komu

A multimedia artist and curator based in Mumbai. Completed his Bachelors & Masters in Painting from Sir. J.J. School of Art, Mumbai in 1999. He is the Ideator of Kochi- Muziris Biennale and Co-Founder of Kochi Biennale Foundation (est. 2010). He co-curated the first edition of Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2012 and has been the Director of Programmes of the Kochi Biennale Foundation (2012, 2014, 2016) and in this capacity, he has initiated the Students' Biennale, Children's Biennale (ABC, Art by Children), Artists Cinema, Music of Muziris, Video Lab, Let's Talk series & History Now (Talks and Seminars), Pepper House Residency & Exhibition.

He has been the Advisor and Visual Arts Curator for Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa in 2016 & 2017 and has conceptualised and curated the 'Young Sub-Continent' project in 2016, 17 & 18. He also curated the Kondotty Sufi Festival in 2019. 

In 2016 he started URU Art Harbour, a cultural hub in Mattancherry, Kochi, (Kerala) which promotes artists from the region focusing on research on Local Culture and Maritime History. Uru Art Harbour also provides a well-supported artist in residency and engages with international artists.

Co-curated first International Football Film Festival in India at Goa International Film Festival and Trivandrum International Film Festival in 2012. As an artist, his works have been exhibited globally including South Africa, Brazil, France, Germany, UK, Italy, Korea, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, USA, China, UAE, Belgium, The Netherlands and Iran among others. He often responds to the time and thematically explores the political and cultural history of India especially Kerala.

Sumedh Rajendran 

Sumedh Rajendran completed a BFA from the College of Fine Arts, Trivandrum, Kerala, 1994 and an MFA from the Delhi College of Art, 1999. 

His solo exhibitions include Water without Memory, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai, 2017; Split Distance, Vadehra Art Gallery, 2015; Dual Liquid, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2010; Chemical Smuggle, Grosvenor Vadehra, London, 2008; Final Call, Anant Art Centre, New Delhi, 2007; Street Fuel Blackout, Sakshi Gallery Mumbai, 2006; and Pseudo-Homelands, Rohtas Art Gallery, Lahore. Rajendran has widely exhibited his works in various international exhibitions. These include participation in Indian Highway at Astrup Fearnley Museum, Norway; On the Road to Next Milestone, part of Indian highway at HEART, Herning, Denmark; Zones of Contact, Propositions on the Museum, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi; and Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, among others. 

The artist lives and works in New Delhi, India. 

Gigi Scaria 

Gigi Scaria was born in Kothanalloor, a village in southern Kerala, India, in 1973. In 1995, after completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram, Scaria moved to New Delhi where he undertook a Master of Arts at Jamia Millia Islamia. In the mid-1990s, while establishing his career as a professional artist, Scaria also illustrated children’s books and taught art at an experimental school in New Delhi. 

By 2000, increased international exposure was accompanied by prestigious residency opportunities and solo exhibitions in India, Germany, America, Hungary, the Republic of Korea and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. In 2002, Scaria was awarded an Inlaks Scholarship, and was artist-in-residence at UNIDEE, Cittadellarte- Pistoletto Foundation, Biella, Italy. Scaria’s creative repertoire includes painting, photography, installation, sculpture, and video. 

Since 2002, he has made over thirty-five video works including: A day with Sohail and Maryan (2004), Home: in/out (2005), Raise your hands those who have touched him (2007), All about the other side (2008), and Raise your hands those who have spoken to him (2010). Subjects of early videos include the children who inhabit the streets of New Delhi, and the memories of people who have met or seen Mahatma Gandhi and Mao Zedong, while recent video work deals with the impact of the rapid growth of India’s cities and the social conditions that have been affected by this change. 

His recent exhibitions include one in 2017 held at Aicon Gallery, New York, titled “All about this side” which included bronze sculptures along with paintings, photographs and video installations. An exhibition of selected works by Scaria titled Iconic Interruptions on Mahatma Gandhi was held at Frederic Jameson Gallery, Duke University was held in September 2017. Ecce Homo: Behold the man or how one becomes what one is, was a recent solo exhibition held in Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi in 2018 

Ranjini Krishnan 

Ranjini Krishnan is a researcher writer and film maker based out of Kerala. Trained in Psychology her research work is concerned about the ‘psychic significance’ of knowledge production endeavours. She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore. Her writing, research and other interventions try to understand the connections between conceptual thinking and creative arts. She is the producer and script - writer of the National Award - winning documentary A Pestering Journey (2010), and was one of the script writers of the feature film Kanyaka Talkies (2013) which won an award for Best Screenplay at the New York Indian Film Festival. 'Daughters of Scheherazade' is her debut visual work. 

Radha Gomaty 

Born in 1968 in Kochi, Kerala, India, Radha Gomaty attended the Foundation Program at NID, Ahmedabad, and then went on to do her BA in Fine Arts – (Painting )from Faculty of Fine Arts at MS University, Baroda, while involving herself with the Indian Radical Sculptors & Painters Association in her final year there. Taking periodic breaks from academia to work on various pursuits and diverse occupations, Radha completed a postgraduate course in History of Art from Viswabharathi University, Santhiniketan, and later briefly did research in Aesthetics in preparation for a Ph.D. which she later abandoned. Radha was a voluntary coordinator of Anmpe Media Trust during which time she scripted and was involved in the post production work of the internationally acclaimed documentary "The 18th Elephant-3 Monologues" besides intensive outreach educational work with children & youth on ecological issues.

Radha, also a poet, works in a range of media, including video, painting, sculpture. In a mix of natural and other material, most of her art is layered and conceptual – mythic in nature and classical in approach. Her poetry has been published in two collections and she has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout India. Two of her works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Sacred Art in Brussels, Belgium.

Today Radha heads 'SlingIt!',in collaboration with a small rural women's unit that upcycles lovely bags from tailoring waste, works on Art & Creative Thinking Outreach Sessions as curator& coordinator of EkaRasa in collaboration with Sparcs Studio & writes for Lumiere Organic Home Store.. She is currently also in collaboration with DezynMode in coordinating online programs in Art & Creative Thinking. 

Interaction with the artists / filmmakers on 30, 31 Oct and 1 Nov @ 6 pm; 

message to 9940642044 for ID and password to attend the interaction