Background of the project: We live in a city that is shaped by water, we share space with this entity that is sacred, neglected, resource and sewage carrier all at once! How can we keep quiet about the water bodies in Chennai? Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai was keen on approaching this vast idea from another perspective, as a cultural institute we saw the need for a layered, transversal approach and above all to create a new dialogue on water in urban spaces. This, in a nutshell is the origin story of Embrace Our Rivers. Water Crisis is not a problem to be solved by technical experts and the government alone. We are listening to what a musician, a fisherman or a policy maker has to say! Educators, Artists, Lawyers, Poets, Architects, Musicians, Stake-holders, Activists, Bureaucrats, Engineers, Students and Citizens – in other words a truly diverse group of people came together to evolve this new dialogue. Embrace Our Rivers is an ongoing effort with several innovative projects running concurrently, each one trying to be as multi-disciplinary and as participative as possible.
Objectives
– Enabling people to understand waterbodies of Chennai and to express what they feel and think about it.
– Connecting different people working on Chennai’s waterbodies.
– Creating possibilities of post-project sustainable work on the issues related Chennai’s waterbodies.
Involvements
– Main actors: Schools and school children in Chennai.
– Main Facilitators: Goethe Institute & Gram Art Collective.
– Other actors & facilitators: Local artists, social workers, crafts-people, farmers, urban gardeners, teachers, parents, performers, musicians, makers, hackers, tinkers, lawyers, architects and relevant organisations and groups.
Media
– Main medium: Land arts will be the central medium of expression around which all other things will happen.
– Other media: Workshops, field visits, sharing by experts, performances, symposium, etc.
Timeline: From 10th January 2018 to 4th March 2018.
Place: Chennai
Roles of participants:
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Work with schools to create landarts.
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Engage with school children using your skillsets to understand and talk about the issue of water-bodies of Chennai.
Costs & Expenses:
– All those costs and expenses incurred by the participant towards this project, which have been approved beforehand, will be borne by Goethe Institut.
– Care will be taken that the participants don’t end-up spending from their pockets for this project, but as far as participants’ time engagement is concerned, that will have to be voluntary and won’t be paid for.
What is a landart?
– Land art is an expression, be it an image or a formulation of words or a mix of both, done with soil as the canvas and crops and crop residue as the drawing material.
– Crops are sown in such a manner on the ground that they grow in the form of a message that is being expressed by the artist(s).
– Images of land arts previously created by us can be found here: Landart
GRAM ART PROJECT 