Kiran Nadar Museum of Art presented a two-day online workshop ‘Fragile, Handle with Care’- A workshop on working with letters and texts facilitated by artist Anuja Ghosalkar. The workshop looked at the act of reading everyday documents with care, as a performative act. Participants were encouraged to share these documents and work creatively with the group.
This program is part of Methods, an ongoing series of artist- led medium workshops. KNMA is one of the best museums in India that opened for the public in January 2010, as the first private museum of art exhibiting Modern and contemporary works from India and the sub-continent.
KNMA as a non-commercial, not-for-profit organization has been promoting Fine Arts in India. This museum of art in India exemplifies the dynamic relationship between art and culture through its exhibitions, publications, educational, and public programs. The workshop at one of the best museums in India entailed participants to look into their collection of letters, emails, post cards, greeting cards, handwritten or typed, on fraying paper or scribbled on note pads - fragile documents of ourselves and our exchanges with those close to us. The intent was to read these documents together and through it access our personal collections and find a performative language in the act of reading. Reading here constituted the literal act or interpretation, by re-writing, underlining, folding, drawing over words, texts. The workshop was a response to the objects, materials presented, but with fragility.
This workshop stemmed from a performance that Anuja Ghosalkar has designed and curated since 2016, called The Reading Room. In The Reading Room, there are no performers, a closed audience of ten to 12 people bring in letters from their personal collections and read them alongside ones curated from the public domain. At the end of each Reading Room the letters are donated to Ghosalkar - that become part of future readings. Over the years Ghosalkar has collected over 80 letters - intimate letters between mothers and daughters or between lovers, official correspondence, historical exchanges, printouts of emails with emojis, form part of this collection.
KNMA encourages participation of the local community through various workshops and activities organized within and outside the museum premise to promote Fine Arts in India. We hope to actively expand its reach to a wider community and be accessible to diverse groups.
