Kochi Biennale's Master Practice Studios at Pepper House

The one-month-long 'Master Practice studios', the workshop for young talents hosted by the Kochi Biennale Foundation is progressing at the historic Pepper House at Fort Kochi.  The present workshop led by the renowned Indian sculptor Valsan Koorma Kolleri was started on 1st June and attended by five young contemporary artists - Sangam Vankhade, Yadu Krishnan, Manisha Chandel, Madhab Das  and Shan K.F.

The five students at the Master Practice Studios have come from different parts of the country and will remain under Kolleri's tutelage for a month. Kolleri says “What an art student learns in college is like what you learn from your nursery classes. It's just the base; there's much more to it. The practical sessions here are mostly to enhance their ability to think from different perspectives”. 

After a strictly conventional education there's always a chance that the young artist gets easily bored, he observes. “To get rid of this monotony, they shift to various mediums and sometimes it helps them to develop unique creations of their own,” he says. “In a way, it also becomes 'Atma Vidya'(knowledge of the soul) as it is self-learned and self-earned.” But he believes that for an artist it is not the medium that matters the most, but the expression. 

An eagle, the creation with dry leaves by Manisha from Ghaziabad catches the eye as you step into the Pepper House. “Under his tutelage, I have a better understanding of my own works,” says the Ghaziabad-based artist. 

Madhab Das who completed his education from Delhi School of Art usually uses iron as his medium. Since it takes a lot of time to collect iron here; he has shifted to clay and wood. Shan KR, a fine arts student from Viswa-Bharati University at Santiniketan, West Bengal, has similarly made a successful switch to wood, from his preferred metal and fiber mediums. Yadhu Krishnan, an MFA student from Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, has been able to look at art in a different light. “I have learnt how to convey what I really want to say using whatever medium is available to me,” he says.

The Master Practice Studios programme is a series of workshops that provide interested practitioners the opportunity to work over an extended duration with master artists. These workshops will run from June through October. The next one is a non-fiction Comics workshop led by renowned artist and graphic designer Orijit Sen and will run from July 10 to August 10, 2018.

The Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) is a non-profit charitable trust engaged in promoting art and culture and educational activities in India; primary amongst them is the hosting of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. The fourth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale,  curated by eminent artist Anita Dube will be opened in December this year. 

Also visit www.kochimuzirisbiennale.org