Indo-Anglian Conversations
Background
Since coming back from her first visit to India in 2016, Stephanie Douet had been looking for an Indian artist who was interested in the British Raj, and could explain to her how contemporary Indians felt about their relationship with historic and modern Britain. In 2017 she found Roshan Chhabria on Instagram, a young Sindh man living and working in Baroda in the middle of a thriving artist community. As it turned out, Roshan is not specially interested in the Raj but the two developed a warm friendship and have been chatting regularly ever since..
As they chatted the two artists began to ponder how they could working together. This seemed to present too many difficulties until it occurred to them that by sending images to and fro on Whatsapp like new-style penfriends, they could make a real world from the virtual.
Process
Douet's long studio wall is prepared with white paint; they arrange live studio visits between Baroda and Norfolk and the chat blooms and flits between their imaginations. Everything is usable - prints torn from magazines, large-scale sketches, word-play on multiple sheets of tracing paper, favourite bits of kitchen equipment and footwear, image succeeding image succeeding each other in an on-going palimpsest.
The formal design of Whatsapp and Instagram visual format - text boxes, favicons - is the skeleton of each work, framing a visual structure and rhythm to the whole. Improvisation is key to discovering new ides and correspondences, which can be quite obscure and free-hand; so Roshan's mother's chip machine becomes fused to a figure in Bosch's 'Garden of Earthly Delights' to become a hybrid monster reminiscent of the nightmarish scene with the woodchipper in the Cohn brothers film 'Fargo'. Coal becomes charcoal becomes Kaahli.
Future Plans
The ultimate aim of 'IndoAnglian Conversations' is to make large-scale site-specific durational live events, inviting people to join in the free and open chat by sending in texts and photos; selected submissions will be brought into the wall-drawing at it evolves on site. Several artists from India and the South Asian community in England have already accepted our invitation to be part of this of the project.
Follow us on Instagram @Indoanglianconversations for frequent updates
Exhibitions
2018 'Heart by Mistake' India Club London Two large hand-finished digital prints
2021 'Fantasy of having a Trailer Wagon to Myself' Gallery 46, London, curated by Tatiana de Stempel
'Manoevring Postcards' Asia Triennial Manchester, curated by Alnoor Mitha
'I-solatedContact' Art Ankara Contemporary art fair, curated by Ozge Gokbulut
Since coming back from her first visit to India in 2016, Stephanie Douet had been looking for an Indian artist who was interested in the British Raj, and could explain to her how contemporary Indians felt about their relationship with historic and modern Britain. In 2017 she found Roshan Chhabria on Instagram, a young Sindh man living and working in Baroda in the middle of a thriving artist community. As it turned out, Roshan is not specially interested in the Raj but the two developed a warm friendship and have been chatting regularly ever since..
As they chatted the two artists began to ponder how they could working together. This seemed to present too many difficulties until it occurred to them that by sending images to and fro on Whatsapp like new-style penfriends, they could make a real world from the virtual.
Process
Douet's long studio wall is prepared with white paint; they arrange live studio visits between Baroda and Norfolk and the chat blooms and flits between their imaginations. Everything is usable - prints torn from magazines, large-scale sketches, word-play on multiple sheets of tracing paper, favourite bits of kitchen equipment and footwear, image succeeding image succeeding each other in an on-going palimpsest.
The formal design of Whatsapp and Instagram visual format - text boxes, favicons - is the skeleton of each work, framing a visual structure and rhythm to the whole. Improvisation is key to discovering new ides and correspondences, which can be quite obscure and free-hand; so Roshan's mother's chip machine becomes fused to a figure in Bosch's 'Garden of Earthly Delights' to become a hybrid monster reminiscent of the nightmarish scene with the woodchipper in the Cohn brothers film 'Fargo'. Coal becomes charcoal becomes Kaahli.
Future Plans
The ultimate aim of 'IndoAnglian Conversations' is to make large-scale site-specific durational live events, inviting people to join in the free and open chat by sending in texts and photos; selected submissions will be brought into the wall-drawing at it evolves on site. Several artists from India and the South Asian community in England have already accepted our invitation to be part of this of the project.
Follow us on Instagram @Indoanglianconversations for frequent updates
Exhibitions
2018 'Heart by Mistake' India Club London Two large hand-finished digital prints
2021 'Fantasy of having a Trailer Wagon to Myself' Gallery 46, London, curated by Tatiana de Stempel
'Manoevring Postcards' Asia Triennial Manchester, curated by Alnoor Mitha
'I-solatedContact' Art Ankara Contemporary art fair, curated by Ozge Gokbulut