Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/12/2020 - 15/01/2021
12:00 am - 11:59 pm
Location
Alliance française du Bengale
Categories
For 2020, within the framework of bilateral relations between France and India and its educational, cultural and artistic exchanges, the French Institute in India along with The Alliance Française du Bengale supports the participation of the French illustrator Ms. Sophie Cousinié (who represented France in IER 2019) in the digital residency “KOLKATA EXPRESS” planned for December 10th, 2020 to January 15th, 2021. This residency will give rise to a restitution and exhibition at the start of 2021 in France and India. Cousinié who represented France last year, will also lead conferences and workshops during this residency.
Taking into account the current health situation, the residence is programmed remotely.
[box type=”note” align=”alignleft” ]Due to Covid-19, the Chapter 4 of Indo European Residency that was to be held in the autumn of 2020 has been postponed to the autumn of 2021. However, the members of the EUNIC cluster of Kolkata are glad to announce the fifth country joining hands with us in this project. We welcome the Consulate General of Italy and look forward to execute the project when times are better. [/box]
Project Outline: For this new virtual edition, Sophie will continue to work on her characters. During the last year, she captured as she can, what she saw as Bengali essence. She would like to call her « character gallery » as Kolkata Express.
Last year, when she visited India she explored the opportunity to try new techniques, new process like linocut, lithography, water colour ink, vegetable paper, thanks to the partnership of the residency with Kala Bhavana campus and their talented artists.
Her goals for this new mission are:
- Create big compositions of Bengali characters, street moves, etc. utilising the Indian paper
- Operate on her personal images, videos. To quote Sophie “India is still in my heart, even though I am not physically present in It is like the characters living and dancing in my head, where ever I go”
- Progress on new techniques, (discovered in last edition) like linocut
- Research on folk pattern, traditional Bengali art
- Plan an exhibition early next year (India or France or both)
A collection of her works displayed at the closing of the IER project in December of 2019. Her inspirations were the hustling and bustling of the city crowd.
Indo European Residency Project Kolkata is an interdisciplinary residency jointly organised by The Alliance Française du Bengale, Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata in collaboration with the Kolkata based gallery CIMA and Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, West Bengal. Every year, the residency takes place in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and in Santiniketan, West Bengal, India and lasts eight weeks (seven weeks in Kolkata and one week in Santiniketan). The first Indo-European Residency Project Kolkata was organised in 2017 with the support of the Franco-German Elysée Fund. The third Indo European Residency in 2019 saw the British Council, Kolkata collaborating in the project as the fifth partner.
