Conceptualised by Serendipity Arts Foundation, LINE OF FLIGHT is a three-part project initiated at the Serendipity Arts Festival, 2018. It borrows its name from the concept of nomadic creativity developed by Gilles Deleuze and was conceived to address mobility as an essential component of artistic work. The focus is specifically on artist residencies, a nodal point in the global network centered on artistic production and mobility. Looking into the role they play in the circuitry of contemporary art and informed by the understanding that artistic globalization is uneven, Line of Flight sets out to discuss how residencies and the artists embedded in them negotiate these unequal mechanisms.
The project is initiated by a day-long, closed-door symposium to be held on 15 December 2018. Its focus will be on the working of residencies as part of the international ecosystem of contemporary art. Alongside, it will initiate a discussion around the growing import of the form of mobility residencies enable for artistic practices. How does the increasing need for movement and networking impact artists’ notions of self-making? How does it engage with the realities of geo-political hierarchies and disparate socio-economic realities? In the face of hardening national borders and increasing limitations imposed on movement never has the need for cross-cultural dialogue been more pressing. Residencies provide a platform for such dialogue in the arts; to enable movement, exchange, and cosmopolitanism. But does it also implant the neoliberal imperative of tourism in artists and artistic practices?
The closed-door event will consist of two panels, and will be attended by a select group of students, art professionals, art institutions, funding bodies and residency professionals based in South Asia. Representatives of the participating residencies will be part of one panel, along with other eminent academics, institutional representatives and previous residency artists to be part of the conversation.
The project is supported by Goethe Insitut Max Mueller Bhavan, Institut Francais de Inde, & Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council.
