Nirox Residency 2022: Dharmendra Prasad
Dharmendra Prasad is the 2022 recipient of the Nirox Residency.
Prasad has a BFA in Painting from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Guwahati and an MFA in Painting from the S.N. School of Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad. Amongst his recent accomplishments are his participation in Notes on Tending by the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art at the India Art Fair 2022; his inclusion in Project 88’s viewing room at Frieze Art Fair, New York 2021 and being awarded the Emerging Artists Award 2019 by ProHelvetia New Delhi and Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, New Delhi.
He is the co founder of the Anga Art Collective. The collective is an Assam-based initiative founded by a group of friends who sought to create a space that engages in critical thinking about visuality and materiality based on the geographical and social landscape of the region.
His practice was born from an abiding interest and appreciation of his grandfather’s non-extractive approach to farming. As per the artist’s proposal, he asks:
How can we harvest the ecological notion of time? How can a private natural forest reserve, a sculpture park, a heritage site, and farm fields around the landscape of Johannesburg provide the conditions for the practice of Harvest philosophy? How can a wilderness with colonial imprints, and with evidence of the beginnings of human civilisation, with a rich cultural fabric, become a junction to imagine pedagogy free from colonial, extractive, and imperial attitudes? How can humanity’s relationship to a place become deeply non-extractive and caring?
Writing in reference to his grandfather’s ‘steadfast process’ of manual cultivation, which involved both oxen and a wooden- plough, Prasad observes a ‘deeply philosophical quest, a way of nurturing ecological notions of time and care,’ that he terms Harvest philosophy: ‘a practice of care through slowness’ and ‘contemplation.’ His proposal seeks to imagine and implement a syllabus grounded in this philosophy that might nurture ‘non-extractive attitudes’ towards farming in the region, creating a ‘soil- centric’ learning environment that intensifies ‘the power of emotional intelligence and care through a spatial and architectural/ sculptural’ intervention which incorporates ‘architectonic functionalities and performances.’
The Nirox Residency is the latest overseas residency opportunity offered by the Foundation in collaboration with the Nirox Foundation. The open call was made available to emerging and mid-career Indian artists, working in all disciplines, under the age of 35 who are resident in India. We received over 30 applications, and would like to also congratulate the other five short-listed candidates, Anupama Alias, Helna Marin Joseph, Kaushal Sapre, Divyesh Undaviya, and Ankur Yadav, whose practices will no doubt continue to inspire.
Prasad will receive an 8 week residency at NIROX that includes full board, residency and studio space (with curatorial and practical assistance), as well as an allowance for travel and materials that has been generously provided by Inlaks.
The residency provides opportunities for Prasad to engage with other artists-in-residence and practitioners working in the field. NIROX’ reach into local life also provides opportunities for engagement with museums, institutions, galleries, academia, artists and other communities, and to visit Johannesburg and its thriving art scene, encouraging exposure to a wide range of programmes hosted at the Sculpture Park. Arising out of a collaboration between NIROX and the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa at the University of Witwatersrand, this will involve the artist with the School of Arts in discussions/workshops and other possible projects.
In addition, the Residency will provide Prasad with access to the new Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture, under development on the property (scheduled for completion September 2022) and to the adjoining 1000 hectare Khatlhamphi Private Nature Reserve, a wilderness of hills and valleys populated with a diversity of local game and birdlife.
Cover Image: Blurred Perimeters and Anga Art Collective., installation view of Possibility Architecture, 2018–19. Crop residue, jute ropes, bamboo; Aie river, Chirang, Assam. Image courtesy of Dharmendra Prasad.
