Kailash Cartographies Press Release

ARTISTS EXPLORE SACRED CARTOGRAPHIES

Artists from India, China, Nepal and US engage with contemporary issues of landscape and sacredness using multiple media at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at The New School.

Opening Reception: March 15, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Lecture by Bo Zheng with Steven Lam from 7:00 – 8:30PM (details below)

Exhibition Dates: March 13 – April 2, 2017

Daily 12:00 noon – 6:00 PM, Thursday until 8:00 PM

Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
66 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10003

More event details about the exhibit online here.

The Sheila C. Design Center (SJDC) and the India-China Institute (ICI) at The New School present Kailash Cartographies, a multi-media exhibition of artists from India, China, Nepal, and the US exploring conceptions of sacred geography, particularly in the Himalayas.  Devotees encounter the sacred through ritual, art, and acts of pilgrimage and circumambulation of mountains and temples.  The artists in the exhibition pose questions about the nature of both the sacred and the secular by drawing on the points of connection with landscapes and lived worlds. The photographs, videos, works on paper and installations, deploy cartographic modes that are both personal and political.

The title of the exhibition refers to Mount Kailash, the symbolic center of the Buddhist and Bön cosmos and the seat of Shiva for Hindus. Although associated with a multiplicity of geographical sites and religious representations, its earthly manifestation is most often located in Tibet. “It is the simultaneously singular and plural aspect of this sacred geography that caught our imagination,” said Sreshta Rit Premnath, curator of the exhibition and participating artist. “Every gesture within such a geography is both specifically located yet can be powerfully invoked elsewhere.”

The exhibition emerges from a three-year research project of The New School’s India China Institute focused on Sacred Landscapes and Sustainable Futures in the Himalayas.  In conjunction with this endeavor, a group of artists initiated creative explorations during 2015-2016.  Many of the works in this exhibition were the direct result of a creative workshop convened in Kathmandu in March 2016.

Featured artists are Atul Bhalla, Kevin Bubriski, Vibha Galhotra, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Ashmina Ranjit, Nitin Sawhney, Radhika Subramaniam, Charwei Tsai & Tsering Tashi Gyalthang, Zheng Bo & Jiang Chao and Qiu Zhijie.

The image gallery below includes a sample of some of the artists work which will be in the show.

Artist Talk: Bo Zheng with Steven Lam

March 15, 7- 8:30pm

Kellen Auditorium, 66 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10003

Bo Zheng (born in Beijing, 1974; lives and works in Hong Kong) is an artist, writer, and teacher, committed to socially and ecologically engaged art. He investigates the past and imagines the future from the perspectives of marginalized communities and marginalized plants. He has worked with a number of museums and art spaces in Asia and Europe, most recently Cass Sculpture Foundation (Chichester, UK), TheCube Project Space (Taipei), and Villa Vassilieff (Paris).

He will be joined in conversation with Steven Lam, independent curator and Director of Director for the School of Art and Design, SUNY Purchase.

This talk is part of the AMT Visiting Artist Lecture Series. More details on the Parsons Fine Arts page and on the Facebook event page.

Closing Reception

March 30, 5 – 7:00pm

Come listen as New School faculty and ICI staff share stories about doing fieldwork in India, Nepal and Tibet as part of a three-year research project on religion, ecology and culture in the Himalayas. A photo presentation highlighting some of the key areas from the field research will also be featured.

The SJDC galleries are open weekdays 12pm to 6pm and entry is free to the public. For more information, please visit: www.newschool.edu/sjdc

For more information about ICI and the research project, please visit: www.indiachinainstitute.org.

The exhibition is sponsored by the India China Institute (ICI), Parsons Fine Arts and the Sheila Johnson Design Center (SJDC) at The New School.

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Parsons School of Design is one of the leading institutions for art and design education in the world. Based in New York but active around the world, the school offers undergraduate and graduate programs in the full spectrum of art and design disciplines, as well as online courses, degree and certificate programs. Critical thinking and collaboration are at the heart of a Parsons education. Parsons graduates are leaders in their respective fields, with a shared commitment to creatively and critically addressing the complexities of life in the 21st century.

Sheila C. Johnson Design Center is an award-winning campus center for Parsons School of Design that combines learning and public spaces with exhibition galleries to provide an important new downtown destination for art and design programming. The mission of the Center is to generate an active dialogue on the role of innovative art and design in responding to the contemporary world. Its programming encourages an interdisciplinary examination of possibility and process, linking the university to local and global debates. The center is named in honor of its primary benefactor, New School Trustee and Parsons Board of Governors Member Sheila C. Johnson. The design by Rice+Lipka Architects is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects.

India China Institute (ICI) works to teach and explore new research and to provide opportunities for both The New School and our international network of innovative scholars, leaders and opinion-makers to engage in critical inquiries involving China, India and the United States. Within the past decade ICI has been successful in the promotion of the academic and public understanding on these issues through providing research and scholarship opportunities through fellowships, courses, publications, public lectures and conferences.