In Search of New Names

Experimenter presents In Search of New Names, an online viewing room of select works by participants of the Experimenter Learning Program Module XVII conducted by Bani Abidi and Priya Sen. Participants showcasing works include Amshu Chukki, Aditi Kulkarni, Farrukh Adnan, Moonis Shah, Payal Arya, Pritish Bali, Shilpi Gulati, Shruti Chamaria, Sundas Shaukat and Tahireh Lal.

'In this online video lab, 18 participants from Karachi, Delhi, Pune, Lahore, Khanewal, Mumbai, Vadodra, Assam, Quetta, Bangalore, Srinagar and London explored the possibilities of creating and thinking together across geographies and borders. The idea was to assemble a community, which experiences each other’s faces, cities and soundscapes; each other’s imagination, histories, boundaries and freedoms. The forced withdrawal from public life in the past year has instigated many to understand the broader dangers inherent in this atomization, and together we sought to use this extreme separateness to connect and speak in new ways. The first few days of our meetings consisted of sharing our respective locations on Google maps and then taking everyone for short video walks in our neighbourhoods. Within hours we travelled through the mangroves of Mudh Island, the rocky hills of Quetta, the lush neighbourhoods of Pune and the streets of London, each journey being led by personal stories and perceptions. This resulted in a project whereby the participants were paired up, and asked to engage with each other's environment by using their partner as the eyes and ears for the work', add Bani Abidi & Priya Sen.