Concept-

This workshop will explore how memory shapes artistic expression in today’s digital era. Participants will paint an object or scene purely from memory, using natural pigments and no digital references, encouraging introspection and material sensitivity. A guided discussion will examine the challenges of translating memory into visuals and how the overuse of technology and images alters perception. Through tactile engagement, participants reconnect with traditional methods, embracing imperfections and subjective distortions. The workshop deepens awareness of how memory, sensory experience, and artistic creation intertwine, offering a personal approach to storytelling and visual expression beyond the influence of screens and instant imagery.

What to Expect?

A hands-on painting session using natural pigments, relying solely on memory, with no digital references.

A guided discussion on how memory influences artistic expression in the digital era.

Exploration of imperfections, distortions, and subjective storytelling through painting.

Do You Need to Bring Anything?

No prior experience is needed, natural pigments and brushes will be provided.

You just need to carry a pencil eraser and palette for mixing colours.

Just bring an open mind and a memory of an object or scene you'd like to paint.

Artist Bio

Soham Raha is an art practitioner whose work bridges the visual and sonic elements of contemporary life. Exploring intersections between the human, non-human, and digital realms, Soham critically examines existence in the digital age. His art reflects the pervasive influence of technology, popular culture, and social interfaces, creating narratives rich in symbolism, irony, and humor. By merging indigenous culture with digital symbols, Soham invites viewers to rethink time and existence through his artworks.

Soham’s notable exhibitions include Call & Response at Glasgow Project Room (2023), An Introspective Perception in France (2023), Our Line in Sand at Art Centrix Space during India Art Fair Parallel (2022), and the 57th National Art Exhibition by Lalit Kala Akademi (2016). Solo shows like Bauler Mormokotha at Gaganendra Pradarshanshala Kolkata (2011) and exhibitions at Alliance Française, Dhaka, and Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata, underscore his dynamic presence in the art world.

His accolades include a 3-month residency by Euroculture in France (2023), an award in drawing from Birla Academy of Art & Culture (2018), and a Merit Award from Sir J.J. School of Art (2019). Soham also participated in NGMA’s Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Workshop (2021) and more.

This workshop will delve deeper into the pedagogical legacy of KG Subramanyan, taking inspiration from his anthropomorphic sculptures and narrative paintings. Participants will trace Subramanyan’s aesthetic choices, thinking how forms are influenced by image histories and contexts that are invoked within his artworks. The attendees will draw/paint creatures of their own, deeply rooted in their personal experiences and inspired from their everyday aesthetics, reflecting on the contexts they find urgent within their worlds.

All materials will be provided by the Museum.

Artist Bio

Rahul Juneja is an artist and educator based in Karnal, Haryana. His artistic practice focuses on shifting arenas of image, language, and techno-mythical intersections. His work has been shown at Goethe Institut, FICA, Anant Art Gallery, India Art Fair, UAAD amongst many other spaces. Rahul recently edited Call #1, a book published by Hekh that traces pedagogical legacies within Indian art institutions, socio-cultural navigations performed by artists, and resonance based models of knowledge production.

This workshop will delve deeper into the works of KP Krishnakumar, taking inspiration from his intriguing drawings. Participants will learn of the contexts in which he produced works, his choice of material and iconography. The workshop will culminate with the participants creating narrative drawings inspired from Krishnakumar’s stylistic tendencies, prompting to dive deep into their pysche and think of incident and dreams which shape their personalities and world view.

What you need to carry

All materials will be provided by the Museum. Carry at least one dream with you.

Artist Bio

Rahul Juneja is an artist and educator based in Karnal, Haryana. His artistic practice focuses on shifting arenas of image, language, and techno-mythical intersections. His work has been shown at Goethe Institut, FICA, Anant Art Gallery, India Art Fair, UAAD amongst many other spaces. Rahul recently edited Call #1, a book published by Hekh that traces pedagogical legacies within Indian art institutions, socio-cultural navigations performed by artists, and resonance based models of knowledge production.

This workshop will delve deeper into the pedagogic legacy of Benodebehari Mukherjee, taking inspiration from his landscape works displayed within the exhibition. Participants will trace how Mukherjee's initial style had influences from chinese and japanese style of scroll painting, and think of the historical and contemporary importance of drawing and outdoor exploration. The workshop will culminate in an outdoor drawing/painting session, where the participants will try to make their own landscapes inspired by Mukherjee’s stylistic tendencies, and reflect on the differences of time, context and aesthetics.

All materials will be provided by the Museum.

Bio

Rahul Juneja is an artist and educator based in Karnal, Haryana. His artistic practice focuses on shifting arenas of image, language, and techno-mythical intersections. His work has been shown at Goethe Institut, FICA, Anant Art Gallery, India Art Fair, UAAD amongst many other spaces. Rahul recently edited Call #1, a book published by Hekh that traces pedagogical legacies within Indian art institutions, socio-cultural navigations performed by artists, and resonance based models of knowledge production.

What to Expect

"I Can Feel It in My Eyes," a roundtable program of ‘The Elemental You’ exhibition, is an exploration of the city’s enduring desire for green spaces, vibrant flower beds and nature experiences. The project delves into a short multifaceted study by the artist through field visits to gardens and nurseries, interviews with local residents and gardeners, along with collecting plant samples to make anthotypes (camera-less photographs). This will culminate into an ephemeral album by the artist capturing the various troubled hues of the capital’s winter landscape.

Participants are invited to have a conversation around greening practices and co-create the album with the artist on January 7th. On a visit to the Lodhi Gardens, one of Delhi's most iconic green spaces, participants will engage in a creative process, when it is engulfed in greys. Participants will collectively thread together these narratives, observations and reflections, along with the anthotypes and field documentation carried out over the duration of the project.

Note: Participants are requested to first gather at KNMA Saket, from where the group will proceed together to Lodhi Garden.

What you need to carry

Just carry your creative energy.

Bio

Anuja Dasgupta is a visual artist, educator and agri-preneur based in Ladakh, India. In an image-driven world, she situates her practice in the elementary aspects of making images. Her work takes shape from the vantage point of Ladakh in the remote roof of the Indian Himalayas, which underpins her camera-less and analog photography, bookmaking, mixed-media installations, and pedagogical practice. Anuja is the recipient of the Generator Co-Operative Art Production Fund - Experimenter (2024), Verzasca Foto Residency - Pro Helvetia New Delhi (2024), TOTO Award for Photography (2023), Prince Claus Seed Award (2021), the Indian Photography Festival Portrait Prize (2017). Her work has been showcased at platforms such as the Swiss Photo Month (2024), Critical Zones, Goethe-Institut New Delhi (2024), LoosenArt, Italy (2022), Ladakh Literature Festival (2019), Kochi-Muziris Students' Biennale (2018), Head On Photo Festival, Australia (2018), among others.

What to Expect

What was the last thing you remember smelling or tasting? Grounded is a movement-based workshop that draws on prompts from nature and the environment to deepen our awareness of our bodies and their surroundings. In this workshop, participants work with movement, memory and sensorial perception as they explore the exhibition, The Elemental You. Participants playfully explore the uneven terrain that is at the heart of the installation 5.4-3-2-1, rediscovering forgotten relationships to gravity, stability and balance.

What you need to carry

Wear comfortable clothing that you can move in. No previous movement experience is required.

Bio

Ranjana Dave (she/her) is an artist and writer. Her practice, emerging from her movement training, and research and writing, unfolds at the intersection of text and movement. She likes to explore how people build relationships with other people, ideas, objects and ecologies – what makes us social beings.

Ranjana’s writing has appeared in Firstpost, The Hindu, Scroll, Time Out, NCPA Onstage, Asian Age, Indian Express, and Tanz, among other publications. She curated and annotated an online archive of dance video at Pad.ma (Public Access Digital Media Archive). She was the co-founder of Dance Dialogues, a Mumbai-based initiative that connected the local dance community to provocative and diverse ideas, individuals and institutions. She has curated conferences for the IGNITE! Dance Festival (2015 and 2016), and Indent (2018 and 2019), and was the dance curator at Serendipity Arts Festival (2018).

Ranjana is the winner of the Art Writers’ Award 2022, presented by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia in collaboration with TAKE on Art. She is one of eight artists in the PICA Interdisciplinary Lab (2021-23). She was an ArThink South Asia Fellow in 2013.

What to Expect

Karan Shrestha, one of the roundtable artists of the “The Elemental You” exhibition, invites participants to connect with rocks. In reverence, through descriptions, from stories, the rocks open up to wonder on being held, and heard. And what do rocks tell? Considering this question, participants will attempt making objects from organic matter and human-made things that hold (remnants of) worlds beyond humankind.

Bio

Karan Shrestha’s practice includes drawings, sculpture, photographs, films and texts that speak to the complex, entangled relations of Nepal’s recent history. Shrestha presents works that are an archive of the terrain, political histories, transient memories and a speculative world that suspends reality, to question notions of progress, while drawing connections to the ecological, cultural and socio-economical dimensions of Nepali life.

Shrestha has participated in numerous group exhibitions around the globe and has shown works in many institutions including Tai Kwun Contemporary (Hong Kong); Jameel Arts Centre, UAE (2022); Kathmandu Triennale, Nepal (2017 & 2022); Museo Madre, Italy (2021); 10th Asia Pacific Triennial, QAGOMA, Australia (2021); Asian Art Biennale, Taiwan (2021); Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2020); Yinchuan Biennale, China (2018); and Serendipity Arts Festival (2017 & 2022), among others.

What to Expect

A four-day workshop developed for artistic practices working with and researching archives and collections. This may be the case of a more formal archive or collection hosted by an institution, but also informal collections found or otherwise, such as photo albums, postcards, letters, notebooks and/or other peculiar objects gathered over a period of time.

During the workshop participants will study different references of artists, filmmakers, curators, theoreticians and other cultural workers engaged with archival practices. Vijai will also discuss different concepts and models developed by different practitioners that have challenged and expanded the notion of archiving.

What you need to carry

You will need to bring to the workshop a project or case that you are working on or have worked on in the past. The workshop is oriented towards discussion over artistic and other cultural practices that engage with archives and collections, rather than a production oriented one. Together will look to problematize and critically reflect on artistic and cultural practices that have opted to engage with formal and informal archives and collections.

Artist Bio

Vijai Maia Patchineelam is an artist researcher and educator. His artistic practice focuses on the dialogue between the artist and the art institution. Placing the role of the artist as a worker in the foreground, Vijai’s research-driven artistic practice experiments with and argues for a more permanent role for artists — one in which artists become a constitutive part of the inner workings of art institutions. A recent outcome of his PhD (2022), which experimented with and advocated for a job position for artists inside art institutions, is the implementation of the position of "artist as a public mediator" at the art space KIOSK, Ghent, Belgium.

What to Expect

In the reverse painting workshop, students will discover how this unique technique differs from regular painting. They will learn to layer details in reverse, practicing patience and care while also working without fear and trusting the process. With step-by-step instructions, personal attention, each student can work at their own pace and enjoy the creative journey with this fun and challenging medium.

Do You Need to Bring Anything?

Not at all! Everything will be provided by the museum.

Who Can Join?

This workshop is open to interested and committed participants aged 18+. Limited seats, so register soon!

Facilitator

Mahmud Husain, a practicing artist with 20 years of experience, graduated from Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan (2002), and completed his MFA from the College of Art, New Delhi (2004). His solo exhibitions include the Kobe Biennale (2007), Seagull foundation 2011 & 2013, India Habitat Centre (2013, 2018), Bihar Museum (2019). He has participated in notable events like the 48th National Exhibition of India, receiving the National Academy Award (Lalit Kala Akademi, 2006). Supported by the Seagull Foundation for the last 15 years, Mahmud’s art explores the inner world of humans, focusing on dreams, fantasies, and insecurities. He lives and works in Greater Noida.

What to Expect

Involving field study, this intense 3-day workshop invites participants to explore, observe and reflect through the art of comics. Participants will develop storytelling techniques, engage slowly with their immediate environments and create graphic stories that capture the essence of their surroundings and reflections. All graphic narratives will be compiled into an anthology, and added to ‘The Elemental You’ exhibition’s gallery ‘The Working Space’.

Day 1 -

The workshop starts with an introduction to abstract art and abstract animation artists, followed by a discussion about narrative in an experimental film. The discussion will be followed by a tour of the exhibition at KNMA where participants will observe and create a one page abstract comics, using the mediums of photography and a mobile app.

Day 2 -

The second day starts with a healing forest walk, with emphasis on observation and sensorial exercises. Coming back to KNMA after the walk, participants will create a graphic narrative based on a memory mapping exercise inspired from the walk.

Day 3 -

The 3rd day will be spent to compile the comics created in the past two days into either a zine or a mini comic book. Participants will learn how to create a mini zine in an A4 size paper. Followed by printing multiple copies of the zine/comic book and final presentation and sharing.

Do You Need to Bring Anything?

Just your creativity and imagination! Don’t forget to carry your mask to avoid pollution.

Who Can Join?

This workshop is open to interested and committed participants aged 18+. Limited seats, so register soon!

Facilitator

Biswajit Das is a documentary filmmaker and animator based in Guwahati, India. Since 2011, he has directed 24 documentary films and over 100 short animation videos. He is also the editor of a periodical anthology of graphic stories published independently from Assam.

Venue

Kiran Nadar Museum of Art No. 145, DLF South Court Mall Saket, Saket District Centre, District Centre, Sector 6, Saket, New Delhi, Delhi 110017, India & Sanjay Van, Qutab Institutional Area, New Mehrauli Road, Delhi - 110016