The Project Café in Assagão maybe new but it is fast becoming a popular location for those from the art world to showcase their works in Goa. Its location in the picturesque village of Assagão makes it the perfect venue for such art shows, drawing an eclectic and intellectual crowd. Most recently, it played host to an evening of dance and paintings inspired by ladies from the Mahabharata. And today, the 18th of December, five pioneering women artists will showcase their offerings to the art world.
‘Persistence of Memory,’ a collection by Five Women Artists
Those that are art aficionados and critics will be familiar with the works of the artist, Salvador Dali. Salvador Dali is one of the most celebrated artists of all time. His fiercely technical yet highly unusual paintings, sculptures and visionary explorations in film and life-size interactive art ushered in a new generation of imaginative expression. From his personal life to his professional endeavors, he always took great risks and proved how rich the world can be when you dare to embrace pure, boundless creativity.
One of his most famous works is ‘Persistence of Memory.’ It refers to the title of a painting he did in 1931 which today, sits in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The painting According to Dali, his painting was not inspired by the theory of relativity, as many suspected, but by the imagination of a Camembert cheese melting in the sun. In a similar fashion, the women artists showcasing their work have also used dream-like imagination to capture transform, and freeze memory. Their works will be displayed in the forms of wall installations, technology-based art, printmaking, and paintings.
Who are these five women artists?
The Project Café is proud to host these five women artists and be associated with the event. But who are they? Showcasing their talent in a number of unique pieces of art are Saba Hasan, Megha Joshi, Katharina Kakar, Nandita Kumar, and Ipshita Maitra. These ladies come from Delhi, Mumbai, and Goa.
Saba Hasan
Saba Hasan was born in 1962 in New Delhi and holds a Masters degree in Cultural Anthropology. She is a noted contemporary artist with a diverse multimedia repertoire developed over two decades of highly distinguished practice. Her work comprises poems on racial profiling, womanhood, intimacy, and mysteries of nature where she uses her own voice and words as material.
Megha Joshi
Megha Joshi was born in New Delhi in 1973 and trained as a sculptor from the prestigious Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University Baroda, India. Megha worked as a set designer and art director for film and television for ten years when she quit at the peak of her career to return to her fine art practice in 2007. In her work, “The Skin Remembers”, Megha Joshi transforms thirty scars of invasive surgery, a breast cancer survivor, a suicide attempt, someone recovering from a bullet wound, a bypass surgery or a road accident, to name a few, into thirty panels made of foam and plywood.
Katharina Kakar
Katharina Kakar was born in 1967 and is originally from in Luebeck, Germany. She and holds a Ph.D. in religious studies/anthropology from the Free University, Berlin. In 2003, she moved with her husband, psychoanalyst and writer Sudhir Kakar, to Goa, where she lives and works as an artist and writer. Katharina Kakar translates personal body memories into memory boxes – altar-like wall hangings in mixed media.
Nandita Kumar
Nandita Kumar is a new-media artist who works at the intersection of art, science, technology, and community to creates interactive installations. Her interest lies in sustainable development, which not only focuses on environmental protection but also social development.
Ipshita Maitra
Ipshita Maitra, born in Mumbai in 1983, has been working with lens-based media since 2006. Ipshita Maitra’s series of handprints, ‘Paved Paradise’ represent nostalgia stemming from the loss of a primal space – one’s home, one’s community, one’s neighborhood. The pictures were taken on long walks around Bandra, Mumbai – a place she grew up in, as she saw a huge transition/ transgression into the once quaint neighborhood.
The show takes place this evening in the 130-year-old Goan villa that houses The Project Café. Interestingly enough, The Project Café also has the distinction of having an art gallery within a restaurant. This isn’t something that is commonly seen in Goa.
So if you find yourself wanting to check out the unique works by these five women artists, be at The Project Café at 19:00 hours this evening.
Address – The Project Café, Amalia Villa no 198, Mazal Vaddo, Assagao
Information credit
Blurb Goa
ItsGoa/DEC/KDGP
