About the Event

An intensive presentation by artists, followed by a moderated discussion by Premjish Achari, Curator, KNMA, on the impact of a singular image in their artistic thinking, research, and practice. When images dominate our everyday lives, and they vanish as soon as they appear, artists delve into a detailed and slow thinking about their experience with a single image that had a profound impact on their personal and artistic lives. 

The conceptual inspiration behind this programme is to examine the important, often affective and emotional influence of the singular image upon the thinking and artistic practices of the artists. It expands the scope of the singular image and argues that a visual artifact – encountered on a social media feed, found in personal archive, glimpsed on street, captured as a screenshot, or found within a book – holds immense potential to impact the artist, irrespective of where it came from and its original context.

Through this series of discussions, we will find answers to curiosities and enquiries such as why a particular image captivates us or demands our attention. Through the exploration of the personal, emotional, or intellectual connection that forms, these sessions invite artists to share their own experience of the specific, often unintentional details within an image that haunt or affect the viewer personally move beyond the general, culturally coded layers of the image.

These discussions also engage with the “micro-processes” through which an encountered image is internalized, analyzed, mediated, and represented in the individual artist’s conceptual framework. We document the journey of the image from being a visual stimulus (external world) to the interior mind and its return into the world of art.

In this era of proliferation of images and also when machines are making images, we propose a critical counter-practice where each artist selects and focuses intensively on one singular image. This intensive approach questions the culture of superficial, rapid image consumption. We position the depth of impact against the dominance of exposure, proposing the importance of developing sustained reflection as a practice amidst the visual chaos.

Our objective is to offer the audience, art students, scholars, etc., insights into the early stages of artistic thinking. By highlighting the specific pull of the selected image, the session also attempts to demystify inspiration, instead emphasizing a process rooted in observation, personal impact, and critical engagement with images and the visual ecology. Through these sessions, we are aspiring to elevate the world of everyday images (also ephemeral images like memes, personal photos, infographics, etc.) as important sources for artistic research.

Speakers:

Divya Singh, Artist

Lokesh Khodke, Independent Artist, Comics Creator, and Arts Educator

Murari Jha, Visual and Performing Arts Practitioner

Moderated and Conceptualised by Premjish Achari, Curator, KNMA