Nikhil Chopra and Madhavi Gore, artists and co-founders of HH Art Spaces in Goa, will be in conversation with Mario D’Souza, Director of Programmes and Dr. Shwetal Patel, founding member of Kochi Muziris Biennale on the importance of sustaining and nurturing cutting-edge creative thinking through friendships and collaborations.
Nikhil Chopra’s artistic practice interweaves live art, drawing, photography, sculpture and installations. His performances, in large part improvised, dwell on identity and its construction, autobiography and authorship, the pose and self-portraiture. His work reflects on the process of transformation and the part played by the duration of performance. Nikhil’s performances on the international art and theater scene began in 2008, when the artist was invited to contribute to Time Crevasse (Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama), kunsten festival des arts Brussels, Making Worlds (53rd Venice Biennale), Performa (New Museum New York) and Marina Abramovic Presents (Manchester International Festival, The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester).
After his one-year research fellowship at Interweaving Perfomance Cultures, Frei Unversität Berlin in 2011, his work took him back to the Whitworth Art Gallery to make a solo project for the 2013 Manchester International Festival where he received critical acclaim for his performance “Coal on Cotton”. Between 2014 and 2017 he performed at the Kochi Muziris Biennale, Bienal de la Habana, the 12th Sharjah Biennial and documenta 14. In 2019 he presented a nine days long solo performance titled “Lands, Waters and Skies” for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The artist is co-founder of the HH Art Spaces based in Goa, where he also lives and works.
Madhavi Gore is a critical arts practitioner and visual artist whose interdisciplinary and intuitive practice is interested in generating modes of questioning and encounters. In 2005/06, Madhavi worked as a text-editor and art writer with ARTIndia Magazine, Mumbai. In 2007, she was visiting faculty at Rachna Sansad College, Faculty of Fine Art and Craft, Mumbai. In 2009, she co-facilitated workshops in Jammu and Kashmir at the Faculty of Fine Art and Music, funded by KHOJ, Delhi; and in 2019, at the Saint Claret College, Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh. Since 2012, she has co-facilitated the BODYWORKSHOP, a live art and performance practice in collaboration with artists Jana Prepeluh and Nikhil Chopra that travelled to the Sunaparanta Center for the Arts in Panjim, Goa and the Kiran Nadir Museum for Contemporary Art, New Delhi; in 2014, the FIND Foundation, in Zagarolo, Italy; in 2015, at the Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh; in 2017, MSU Faculty of Fine Arts Baroda. She has performed at Gruntaler9, Berlin, 2012; TARQ, Mumbai, 2016; KIPAF Kolkata International Performance Festival and Teertha Performance Art Platform, 2015. The artist is co-founder of the HH Art Spaces based in Goa, where she also lives and works.
Mario D’Souza is a curator and writer based between New Delhi, Goa, and Kochi, India. He is the Director of Programmes at the Kochi-Biennale Foundation and is on the Curatorial Team for the 2022 Kochi-Muziris Biennale. He is also resident curator at HH Art Spaces Goa. He was formerly the curator at Khoj International Artist’s Association, New Delhi, where he curated several exhibitions, including This Must be True, co-curated with Mila Samdub and Radha Mahendru and Evidence Room. In addition, he worked on Asia Assemble (2017) and co-curated the symposium Art – Science – Fiction (2018). His upcoming curatorial projects include Antibodies with HH Art Spaces, The Tetley Museum, Tate Hyundai Research Center and Live Art Development Agency supported by British Council, among others.
Dr. Shwetal A Patel is a writer and researcher working at the intersection of contemporary art, exhibition-making practices, and development studies. He is a founding member of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, and holds a practice-based PhD from University of Southampton, Winchester School of Art. He has operated within the arts in Europe and Asia for over two decades, and regularly contributes to journals, academic conferences and other platforms. He is an editorial board member of OnCurating (Zurich University of the Arts), advisor to Kolkata Centre for Creativity and a trustee of Milton Keynes Museum.