Press Release

[en]counters - powerPLAY

Dates: Performances from Friday January 11 – Sunday January 20, 2013

Locations: Horniman Circle I Carter Road Promenade, Bandra I Juhu Beach I StudioX

Entry Cost: FREE and open to the public

Kay Abude I Mansi Bhatt I Clara Cheung I Gum Cheung I Wai Ian ChungVibha Galhotra I Reena Kallat I Fung Lee I Mee Ping Leung I Chi Kit Lo

Tobias Megerle I Pietro Pirelli I PVI CollectiveSharmila Samant I The Red Swing Project I The Telepathy Project

In January 2013, Mumbai’s gardens and beaches will become the source of inspiration for a group of

Indian and international artists who will create artworks never seen in India before in spaces

uncommon for the visual arts.

The art project [en]counters - powerPLAY, produced by Mumbai-based art organisations ArtOxygen

and Asia Art Projects, in collaboration with StudioX and Celebrate Bandra Trust, will take place from the

Friday January 11 to Sunday January 2013. In a programme curated by ArtOxygen, Asia Art Projects,

C&G-Artpartment, Woofer Ten [Hong Kong], Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta [Italy] and Satellite Art

Projects [Australia], the participating artists’ performances and installations will take place along the

city’s waterfronts and gardens.

powerPLAY is part of the series [en]counters, an annual artistic project that, since 2010, has explored

the everyday life of the city. The theme under scrutiny is energy as power, light and connections

between people. It will create new points of intersection in spaces still reserved for amusement amidst

a constantly changing landscape. Its purpose is to highlight how our public spaces can be used as

active areas which can positively affect our ways of living.

A wide network of art collaborations will take place: Simon Maidment, from Melbourne-based

Satellite Art Projects is “very excited and thrilled with the idea of bringing Australian artists to such a

diverse context as Mumbai city.” The Telepathy Project’s piece will explore alternate ways of

communicating. They will be singing their dreams to the sea at Juhu Beach. The performance will be

made up of a series of short songs corresponding to each dream day, a unique way of mapping their

time in India in a conscious and unconscious way. PVI Collective will perform Resist, a participatory

performance work that encourages audiences to step up and champion a cause using the ancient

art of tug-of-war. Kay Abude will invite local artists to join her Production Line, where four performers will

work with locally sourced textiles, fashioning interpretations of Indian currency in a series of workstations.

Clara Cheung and Gum Cheung run C&G-Artpartment in Hong Kong, an art collective that is bringing

six events to the city, and encouraging a participatory approach.

Wai Ian Chung’s Ghost Stories will illuminate the Carter Road Promenade with luminous paintings of

local stories she will collect during her residency in Mumbai. Clara Cheung will create an installation

depicting Mumbai’s skyline using recycled bottles and aluminum cans. People will be invited to pour

seawater into the cans that will light up the work at night.

Martina Mazzotta from the Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta in Milan is keen to see how people will react

to Italian artist Pietro Pirelli, whose Mumbai Traffic Flowers will transform city noises into visual melodies

using light and water.

The subject of energy will be tackled from a very different perspective by the Indian artists. Vibha

Galhotra will continue her exploration of Indian waterways by collecting sediments from the Mithi river

that she will use to create sculptures from fishing nets. Sharmila Samant proposes to take advantage of

the creative skills of a group of architecture students to create an open thinking space in the form of a

library in Mankhurd. Reena Kallat will play with the idea of hierarchies and power relationships through

a puzzle-like cube sculpture formed by 20 sports podiums with jumbled numbering and levels. The Red

Swing Project will generate unexpected playgrounds in the city and invite people to make their own

swing to positively impact under-utilized public spaces in their community. Tobias Megerle of German

origin, based in Mumbai, will create an ‘invisible’ seat where those who sit on it appear to levitate.

The artistic events will be held in Horniman Circle Garden, Juhu Beach, Carter Road Promenade,

Bandra and StudioX (a Columbia University research laboratory, a global network initiative of the Grad-

uate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation). Along with the artistic interventions, an outreach

program will be incorporated into the project in collaboration with educational institutions and NGO’s.

In addition, the project is engaging with art students through its ‘buddy’ programme, whereby local

students partner with each artist to assist them in the preparatory stages of their projects, and, in the

case of the foreign artists, help them navigate the city. This programme gives young artists the unique

opportunity to exchange with and learn from senior artists from India and abroad.

Press Release

[en]counters - powerPLAY

PVI Collective, Resist, photo: Bohdan Warchomij Kay Abude, Production Line

For schedule details visit

www.asiaartprojects.com/powerplay // www.artoxygen.org

For further details and images contact alekha@asiaartprojects.com // +919820437988

Carter Road activities will be at the Titan Clock and Amphitheatre

Juhu Beach activities near V Lounge Lane, behind Sea Princess Hotel

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria, and the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Australian residency partner Last Ship, Mumbai.

The Telepathy Project

Reena Kallat, Podium/Cube

(computer generated image)