Creating a map can be seen as one way to organize information to make sense of the world. We study maps to understand cultural markers of a specific time. In the present, maps can be accessed in real time over digital imaging devices. This makes the older maps redundant in terms of their use. The very idea that gave birth to a map (of collecting and relating/relaying specific information) has been turned upon its head. If the map was never an accurate document, then why do we see it as one?

Used in the broadest sense, a map reflects the time it is created in. Over a period of time, physical spaces evolve into sites for exploration and provide an opportunity for first-hand mapping to take place. We each have our own maps, our own sense of time in how we see the world. This workshop uses the process of cyanotype to think about maps and the process of map making.

Interested and committed participants (18+) are expected to attend the entire duration of the workshop. Art material and refreshments will be provided. The onsite workshop with limited seats will be held at KNMA Saket.

Nidhi Khurana is an artist and educator based in New Delhi. Born in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, she completed her Bachelors in Visual Arts with a specialization in Sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, Gujarat in 2003 followed by a Masters in Art from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her studio work takes the form of drawings, textiles, carpets, prints, artist-books, and sculptures to reflect upon the role of the human within nature. In her recent works she explores her relationship with the natural world by mapping her experiences as cyclical graphs of time, inspired by a diversity in cognitive approaches such as the Australian aboriginal dreamtime, the Mappaemundi, the yatra or pilgrimage maps and representations from Mughal and Islamic cosmological diagrams. Nidhi has completed a yearlong Artist residency program at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste Braunschweig, funded by the State of Lower Saxony (BS Projects Scholarship 2018-19) Germany.

Jaimini Jariwala is a visual artist and printmaker based in Surat. She completed her Masters in printmaking and graphics from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara in 2017. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Visual arts (painting) from Surat School of Fine Arts, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat. Jaimini has received the Space Studio Craft Residency 2022 and was a resident artist at Priyashri Studio in Vadodara in 2019. She has been a part of many workshops and exhibitions including the Verna Biennale in 2018 and the Pune Biennale in 2015. Jaimini is a recipient of the Prafulla Dahanukar Gujarat State Award in 2017.

Methods: A series of artist led medium workshops organised by KNMA

The force driving at the crux of the segment has been to re-examine the mandate of a medium centric ‘workshop’ and looks beyond the usual format of craft-hobby workroom sessions. At the heart of each session is a chosen artist with their unique style of expression and fashioned in an actively interactive module of facilitator-participant format. This KNMA series highlights how the paradigmatic shifts in contemporary art making need to be registered at individual levels and not merely as institutional applied skill dissemination. The workshop opens up room for both artists and non-artists as well as keen learners to interact with practitioners from a wide spectrum of styles and media to reimagine the tools and raw material for art making - ranging from drawings, maps, personal memories to printing techniques to textual excerpts to found or broken objects, just to name a few.

Program curators: Neha Tickoo and Madhurima Chaudhuri