PIN POSTER: Nippon Gallery

www.nippongallery.com

 

PIN POSTER: NIPPON GALLERY

The Kolkata new  - next Breed 

16 Artist, more than 70 Artworks, explores new ways of artworks.

We assure you a phenomenal experience of the new media …

Nippon Gallery 

Presents

The Kolkata New- Next Breed

Curated by

Moumita Sarkar

Sale Starts Live : 11am

20 to 27 Jan 2021

On - Screen display show - www.nippongallery.com 

 

A city built on artistic practice, a tradition of poetry and philosophy is today, more than ever, demanding that its inhabitants address the existing reality

Shahper born in 1984 is Syed Sarvat Ali Jafri’s first given name. It means  “the feather in the shah’s crown” a name that descends from his ancestral tradition and a lineage linking directly to the once glamourous Awadh Empire of the 17^th Century. His city, Faizabad - meaning the “City of Gardens” in Persian – carries the scares of the lost glory where the magnificent gates stand crumbling among collapsing palaces, temples, mosques,  boisterous souks and bazaars that continue to thrive alongside the disintegrating Persian style architectural wonders that once made the city a pearl of the east.

 

Waqt- e- namaz Size : 21×25 in Media : Sculpture = Clay, Cement, Wood Year : 2019

Faizabad despite its lost glory remains the inspiration for Syed Ali Jafri’s multifaceted artistic practice. He is one of a few contemporary artists residing in the city which is now home to 100 million people, many of whom are descendants of refugees from Punjab, Sind and others far off lands that came to settle in the flourishing city over the centuries.

 

The dramatic turning point for Faizabad came on December 6th, 1992 when Hindu Nationalists destroyed the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya - Faizabad, next door to the Artists’ centuries old family home. Syed Ali witnessed the riots and the ensuing bloodbath firsthand and has since lived through the subsequent rift and polarization this event caused within his community. The riots - and the politics that flared them - split the society like a  surgical intervention separating the syncretic culture of Hindus and Muslims and turned neighbours into irreconcilable enemies, destined to live in proximity. 

 

The political realities of caste, creed and unemployment are powerful forces of destruction chipping away at the few remnants of a common glorious past and is rewriting the city’s history. The pain of Faizabad - visible on the city’s decaying walls - is one Syed Ali shares with the abandoned structures of his town that mirror history. A city built on artistic practice, a tradition of poetry and philosophy is today, more than ever,  demanding that its inhabitants address the existing reality. The political party of India  triumph in May 2019 declared the Hindu Nationalist project a priority and thus once more reinvigorated religious hostilities that threaten to definitively erase spaces that maintain a collective future.

 

Syed Sarvat Ali Jafri believes that the only power at his disposal to confront the emerging political reality is Art. His personal space is a form of dissent that is optimistic and inlaid with aesthetics demanding to engage in peaceful communal conversation.  Soliciting dialogue through visual scapes - which is essential to the Ganga- Jamuni tradition of Avadh - aims to mellow the schism of politics and community. He is adamant that the preservation of what is left of his culture is urgently needed and he has thus devised multiple innovative techniques, formats and conceptual principles to deal with local complexities.

 

EXHIBITION : Garden Of Remembrance

 

“Our minds view the world through the prisms of philosophies we believe in, mine is the wisdom of contesting conflict and bowing out of conflicts that define humanity today.” Syed Sarvat Ali Jafri

 

Syed Sarvat Ali Jafri draws on the contemporaneity of the syncretic Islamic visual culture that he inherited through his lineage that imbibed the visual elements of Hinduism and Sufism. He comes from a tradition of Shia poets who used poetry as a form of a narrative retelling of history and pain. 

 

In this show he explores multiple artistic formats that together constitute the different aspects of the narrative of peaceful struggle against marginalization. His works conceptually replaces the loss of 17 century architecture in his city to urban chaos, politics and time. Accordingly, the Artist integrates architecture into his creative vocabulary through the vantage point of his familiarity with the ruins of Shia tombs, mosques, bazaars and city-gates that dot Faizabad. 

 

'Sajdagah' or Turbah

 

Series of 18 Clay Tablets Sculptures

 

For local Shi’ite families scattered around the globe, the clay tablets known as  'Sajdagah'  or “turbah” - meaning soil in Arabic – represent soil from Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim Karbala shrine. They are a blessing, an object of remembrance, even a cure for sickness. The Karbala tablets or 'Sajdagah' are used during prayers by Shia Muslims worldwide.  They embody the tradition of making shrines to Imam Ali and his family during the month of Mohurrum and incorporate symbols such as the Panjatan, Taziya and Taboot. Elements such as a water carrier, Hazrat Abbas's hand etc..

The tablets provide certain metaphors of longing and restitution. 

Syed Sarvat Ali Jafri innovated a technique whereby he crushes the clay used to envelope cement tiles and wood as a form of mortar to construct miniature shrines in ode to the lost architecture and culture of Faizabad.

 

 

 

18Sculpture Clay works

 3 Metal wheels

15 water colour Urdu Calligraphy

 

Through Urdu alphabet, names and memories as well as Persian words that form a part of our local creole Syed Ali Jafri constructs poetic narratives of resistance drawing from a tradition of Persian and Urdu poetry which was once common in Faizabad.

 

Calligraphy writing being and ancient form of art allows the artist to reanimate through a conceptual practice the tenets of Islamic Visual Culture. Incorporating multiple aspects of his ancestral traditions is a form of pacifist dissent against the growing communalism that is rapidly overtaking Faizabad’s daily environment.

 

 

By Jihan El - Tahri

 

 

 

 

 

Nippon Gallery Presents

Solo Show

 

Garden of Remembrance

 

Recent works

Syed Ali Sarvat Jafri

 

Curated by

Jihan El – Tahri

 

Explore Sculptures and Calligraphy

Sale Starts Live

 

10 to 17 Jan 2021

www.nippongallery.com

 

On - Screen display Solo show

-

 

51st IFFI : Raj Pritam More "Khisa"finds entry in Indian Panorama 2020.

India's Marathi short film''Khisa''(Pocket) is now making its way to India after acclaimed so many international awards. ''Khisa''short film Official Selected in Indian Panorama for  51st International film festival of India, Goa 2021. 

The short film is Directed by Raj Pritam More. Produced by PP Cine Production Mumbai and Laaltippa Films. The film has been shot at  Akola ( Vidarbha).

Khisa is the story of a young boy who lives in a remote village in Maharashtra. He decides to get a large pocket stitched for his school shirt, in which he keeps all his precious belongings - petals, coins, marble balls; A pocket, he is proud of. It sets him apart from others his age, whose pockets are not only smaller in comparison but also ordinary and similar to each other in appearance.The little boy does not understand the politics of symbolism that adults engage in, and his pocket soon becomes a point of contention amongst elders in the village .

Khisa is the directorial debut short film of the director Raj Pritam More   which has got so many international awards, nominations and official selection. He quoted  Khisa is the story of the loss of innocence and coming-of-age of a young boy, is ironically symbolic of the times we live in. Khisa is a heart touching tale of a boy which will definitely give the audience a different perspective.He further said that Marathi movies are reaching new heights every day. Marathi content is making its marks not only in the country but all over the world.This 15 minute film will make a place in everyone's heart.

Raj Pritam More

From early this, short film ''Khisa'' won 2 Awards at the Istanbul Film Awards 2020.Best Film and Best Screenplay, 2 award international awards and in India very prestigious Screenplay Awards at 10th Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival,New Delhi .India -20 .

Khisa also qualifies to compete for the prestigious Golden star Awards at the annual live screening gala of IFA, which will be held in Istanbul, Turkey in March 2021.

Also got a nomination for Best international Short Film and Best Director at Dublin International short and music festival 2020.Khisa also shown at world's premier online screening at (DISFMF) Dublin International short and music festival 20.

Khisa  got  2 prestigious awards at  Mumbai International cult Film Festival. BEST DEBUT DIRECTOR (MICFF GOLD) and BEST ACTOR IN SUPPORTING ROLE (SPECIAL JURY MENTION) . And it's also Official selection at Montreal Independent Film Festival Canada 2020 and  26th (KIFF) Kolkata International Film Festival 20. Official Selection at Dioroma International film festival  2020. Official Selection at (Jiff) Jaipur international film festival 2020.

Official Selection at Singapore international film festival 2020.  

It's also Official Selection at Dioroma Indie Shorts Awards Buenos Aires, Argentina 2020.

''Khisa''  is also selected at  Dharamshala International Film Festival  and set to world premiere at the prestigious Dharamshala International Film Festival.

Written by Kailash Waghmare ,Short film editor Santosh Maithani, Director of Photography Simarjit Singh Suman, Music by Parijat Chakraborty, Sound recordist by Kushal Sarda. Kailash Waghmare,Meenakshi Rathod,Shruti Madhydeep ,Dr Sheshpal Ganvir and Vedant Shrisagar (child actor) are in the lead roles.