ajaykumar

site-specific installations and inter-active processes

zen gardens without the 'zen' is a series of 'gardens' as art works for galleries, public spaces, and private homes.

The art work in zen gardens without the 'zen' is less a clear art object, but rather a work that is found in an ephemeral space between an art object and your experiencing of it as a spectator.

Such an idea has resonance with the Buddhist concept of 'dependent origination' which explains that all beings and phenomena exist not as separate entities but always in dynamic inter-action with each other. Such an idea of 'relational being' and the importance of you the spectator in the totality of a work's composition have historically figured in the art, architecture, and gardens of India, China, and Japan.

zen gardens without the 'zen' concerns particular relationships that exist between art, architecture, landscape, human bodies, philosophy, ecology, and technology. Ajaykumar's thinking and practice have been influenced in particular by: the stupendous Tantric art and architecture of rock cut edifices at Ellora and Ajanta in India; Zen gardens which were compositionally influenced by ancient Indian ideas of the nature of the Universe; the contemporary architecture of Tadao Ando, particularly the Water Temple, a site of Tantric Buddhism, in Japan. All these works have strong relationships with nature.

The human-made caves at Ellora and Ajanta were art and architecture that related to a wider nature and contained empty spaces that were considered as much part of the sculpture as the carvings on the cave walls.

Tadao Ando uses natural sunlight to create spectacular cathartic moments at the Water Temple. He perceives his architecture to be not the built edifice only but the edifice in relation to the human beings that frequent it and in relation to a wider landscape.

Zen gardens come into being through the spectator's viewing of them: creating a kind of 'psychosphere': a space or place that facilitates contact with the imagination, the psyche, the soul: a space and place of 'being'.

Works in this series include: foyer, art without artists, cute-micro garden, paper garden, and are described below.

interactive installation and garden design

public presentation
• design: imagination, process, production - exploring and celebrating the advancements in design excellence - The Study Gallery, Poole, UK, 19 March-14 May, 2005.
• The First Modern Art Fair, Poole: The Study Gallery, Poole, UK, 24–28 May, 2005

description
cute is a garden where you can shape the contours of its landscape, the location of the bonsai tree that stands upon it, and the composition, kinds, and colours of the flower petals you place on the terrain, according to your creativity, taste and mood.

cute is a micro-garden that fits in any room in your home. it requires no water, only care and imagination.

You can tend the garden every day, or never, as you wish.

cute micro garden, using contemporary materials, re-conceives ideas of garden design, art, and philosophy, which historically originated in India, China, and Japan.

interactive-installation

public presentation
Territories - light, sound & space, group exhibition, Study Gallery, Poole, UK, Jul-Oct. 2007
ArtistsExchange, CAA, Hilton Hotel, New York, USA, group exhibition, Feb. 2007.
biblio-, Triangle Gallery, London, UK, group exhibition, Mar. 2006,

description
Imagine a rectangular transparent plastic paper shelving tray (à la Muji) sitting on a circular steel Indian tray: (thali). The shelving tray is stacked with pages which have text on one side and images on the other. These pages have parts cut out of them. Also on the thali are two paper 'sculptures' - like origami - seemingly made from some of the sheets on the shelving tray, a pair of scissors. Next to the thali is a note from the artist: -

Feel free to take one of the sheets of paper on the tray and cut it up, fold it, sculpt it to whatever images and shapes come to mind. Then leave it by the tray, on the table, so that others can also take pleasure in it. This is the paper garden, made in part by your own imagination.

Like much of Ajaykumar's work paper garden is about play and playfulness - how a work of art may come into 'being' through your imagination as a spectator. His work relates to Nature, about how we may connect with and think about Nature.

Ajaykumar’s art is not so much about objects but about how we inter-act socially, with the world around us. He creates little worlds - special spaces or places - to contact our playful nature, our imagination, and our feelings about the sacredness of our lives and our relationships. These relationships are as much to do with our relationship with others, as they are with objects, and with ourselves.

paper garden is the latest work in the series: zen gardens without the ‘zen’. The sheets of paper in paper garden have images on them from previous works made by the artist in this series. Ajaykumar's work is in part re-interpreting Buddhist and Tantric philosophies and art in a contemporary context, free from their original religious specificity. On the flip side of each sheet are extracts of texts, drawn from published articles he has written on the themes. Feel free to read them too if you wish. While Tantra has often been popularly misunderstood as ‘kinky sex’, its profound teaching is about individuals finding their own path to developing an understanding of the sacredness of all phenomena in the universe, and the sacredness of all activity. There are similar ideas to this in Zen and in other schools of Buddhism, which have been influenced by Tantra.

video art

public presentation
• Territories – light, sound & space -group exhibition, Study Gallery, Poole, UK,
Jul-Oct. 2007.
• Sky TV/Propeller TV, UK, Broadcast, Sept. and Oct. 2006; Jan. 2007.
• Artist Review Series - Immersivity, Art, Architecture, Sound and Ecology for Live Art Garden Initiative, London, UK, Jan. 2007 .
• biblio- group exhibition, Triangle Gallery, London, UK, Mar. 2006.
• Carnival of E-Creativity, Festival of Electronic Art, New Delhi, India, Jan. 2006.
• Global Podcast, via iTunes, Mar. '06-present. Viewable with itunes software at:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=119002027&s=143444&i=2151559

description
Commissioned initially for Channel Five's Mad for Art series, the film tate modern seems to concern the potential of an art object (the Tate Modern Museum) to heal. Yet Ajaykumar’s art is ultimately not so much about the art object but about how we inter-act socially, with the world around us. He creates little worlds for himself and for others - special spaces or places - to contact our playful nature, our imagination, and our feelings about the sacredness of our lives and our relationships. These relationships are as much to do with our relationship with others, as they are with objects, and with ourselves.

tate modern offers a radical and highly personal engagement with the spatial dynamics of the Tate Modern Museum, London: perceiving the museum's ‘emptiness’ and a spectator’s experience of it, as integral to its art, as well as its architecture.

tate modern is the first film in a series, entitled spaces, on the subject of architecture, art and philosophy. Films and Podcasts to follow have as subjects: the Guggenheim, Bilbao; the Guggenheim, New York; The British Museum; Tate Britain; the rock–cut edifices of Ellora, India; the Water Temple, designed by Tadao Ando.

sound installation and podcast version public presentation

• The Powerhouse Museum, beta_space Gallery, Sydney, Australia:
3 Sep–3 Oct. 2007 (radio play v.2)
In gallery as well as online format:
See - http://www.betaspace.net.au/content/view/44

• Territories- light, sound & space group exhibition, Study Gallery, Poole, UK, Jul-Oct. 2007 (radio play v.2)

• transpose: shedding the capacity to fit in, exhibition and symposium,
Sakewewak First Nation’s Arts Collective, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Canada,
Mar. 2007. (radio play v.1)

 

description
radio play is in part a play on a radio play. It takes the form of a sound installation an
auto-ethnographic audio presentation, crucially experienced in a darkened space.
Blurring distinctions between practice and theory, radio play has resonances with performative lectures of John Cage; as well as with film essays of Chris Marker, who, alongside other cine-roman directors - such as Marguerite Duras, Alain Resnais, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Agnes Varda - made 'films to read'. It also has resonance with Derek Jarman's Blue.

Formally and thematically the work engages with the Japanese concept of Ma - signifying emptiness-presence, interval, pause, rest, a space in-between, in-relation, and space-time.
radio play is an immersive work that elicits a particular spectatorship, facilitating possibilities of spectators as co-creators; engaging with a notion of artist as medium rather than auteur. radio play calls into question established notions of race and cultural diversity. It could be termed a work of sound art, of live art, and of new writing.
radio play exists in diverse formats. It is also to be experienced as podcast, with eyes closed, from several websites.

listen to radio play

installation and conceptual process
collaboration between Ajaykumar and Alok Nandi

description
a_m_m_s is a project to develop an installation and a particular methodology of working between the collaborators that investigate the South Asian and Japanese notions: akasha, ma, mu, sunyata.

The Japanese term ma has multiple meanings and resonances, including space-time, an emptiness that has presence, interval, and pause. It corresponds in part to a term in Sanskrit, akasha: which also signifies a space that has presence, as well as other meanings. Sunyata in Sanskrit means void and has correspondence to the Japanese Zen term mu, which also could be understood as void or nothingness.

An aim of a_m_m_s is to engender spectators' experiential journeys through space and time in a gallery: journeys that evoke possibilities of sensing these concepts.

Another aim of a_m_m_s is to construct a process of collaboration between Ajaykumar and Alok Nandi that corresponds with some of the conceptual notions.

A further aim is to have interventions that enable dialogue with spectators, artists, academics interested in the project ideas.

Alok Nandi,
An independent media artist who has been working on a range of projects exploring different media, with related mise-en-scene. His background studies combine both engineering and film studies, pushing him to explore the tension between storytelling and technologies, the tension between text and context, between word and image.
In 1996, he was selected as Japan Foundation Fellow for a video piece on Tokyo, a voyage in the city, allowing the exploration of urbanity and cinematography. He was awarded the Internet 97 Prize of Société Civile des Auteurs Multimedia in Paris, for the web mise-en-scene of urbicande.be, with Schuiten-Peeters, based on the graphic novel series Obscure Cities.
www.aloknandi.net

dance-theatre

A collaboration between Amina Khayyam and Ajaykumar

Performances:

MAC, Birmingham, 16 March 2007, 8pm

B.O. 0121 440 3838

and

arts depot, London 22 March 2007, 8pm
B.O. 020 8369 5454

Ajaykumar and Amina Khayyam explore theatricalisation of the classical Indian dance form of Kathak to tell this compelling tale of a woman denied the most important thing on her wedding day: a red dress ( laal shaari).

This work is a rethinking of Kathak: involving a process of deconstruction of elements of Kathak - such as fast footwork (tatkar), spins (chakkar), and use of bhav (emotions) in its abhinaya (art of expression).

Produced by Zero Projects, in association with Greenwich Dance Agency and Goldsmiths College.

performance

Riverside Studios, London and at Explore@Bristol

A performance work investigating issues of bioethics and infertility, directed by Anna Furse. I researched and developed strategies for the creation of a synthetic, 'poly- tekhne-kal', scenography that engenders inter-action between the human (performer and spectator) and the ‘technological’ and the spatial. It involved digital video and projections.