City Lab: Urban Dialogues is a program designed by Kaee Contemporary to mobilize citizens by bringing together the collective experiences of city dwellers. Through engaging gatherings and workshops in both indoor and public spaces, the program aims to foster engagement, document, and archive these activities.
The program seeks to navigate cultural shifts and evolving urban spaces over
time by revitalizing
history, public memory, and lived experiences. Inspired by the ideas of happenings,
performativity, discovering locations, and organic engagements & conversations, the gallery aims
to promote forms of artistic engagement and study the character of the city.
The gallery envisions art institutions as catalysts for bringing art closer to daily life.
Through site-specific demonstrations, public presentations, and indoor workshop sessions, the module aims to foster conversations about the nature of these sites and potential engagements that will evolve into critical discourse in the context of Art, Urbanism, and Public Engagement.
Sessions and Conductors
Open Studio
The three sessions organised in the first half of the module acted as a source of inspiration for the participants to propose their own project that holds the city within or looks at certain character that is unique to the city.
Inspired by various facets of the city spaces, its history, inhabitants, their livelihood, traditions and urban experience – these 5 Artists employed their artistic strategies to engage with the city.
Expectations from this module
“City Lab: Urban Dialogues” is a learning module designed as a 2-month program, where participants can learn specific skill sets related to visual art, with guidance from contemporary practitioners. With recommended readings and guided walks, participants are required to generate ideas for artistic interventions in the public space in this learning module.
This is a discursive peer learning module in contemporary art-making that encourages exploration, conversation, making, reading, and sharing. As part of this module, Kaee Contemporary offers a variety of group activities and guided sessions by invited Artist conductors focusing on visual art with an emphasis on working in the public domain and engaging with the city of Kolkata. Each conductor delivers a kick-off session in public, followed by a workshop session in the gallery, with a total of 6 sessions in the first 3 weeks, where full participation and attendance in all 6 sessions are mandatory.
Designed as a micro-interdisciplinary residency the module continues with a fortnight of project ideation and exercise period followed by 2 weeks of production time. At the end the 2 months long engagement , an open studio is hosted, where the artist present their work through an interactive session – this can include traditional and experimental ways of sharing.
This module accepts small group of participants as collaborating artists who are based in and around Kolkata to propose strategies of artistic intervention. Through its upcoming iterations this module aims to bring together young enthusiasts from Kolkata with a background in the disciplines of — Visual Art, Film, Nonfiction-writing and Documentary, Literature, History, Museology and transdisciplinary approaches.
Gradually we plan to create a network of like-minded individuals excited to - Think, Gather, and Do.
What do we do?
We are invested in art-making and community engagement. By translating ideas into action, we create spaces for various activities and events in the city. Fostering public interaction in the city and propose strategies of artistic intervention in urban community.
Our efforts help build resonance and sustain enthusiasm in our time, stimulating purposeful action in the city of Kolkata.
