Past Residents
Past Resident2014: Manitoba Arts Council
Divya Mehra
Divya Mehra’s research-fueled practice often explores marginalization, otherness and the empty promise of diversity. Through appropriating, editing and reassembling a variety of literary, comedic and musical sources, she creates an acerbic dialogue on the commandeering, consumption and construction of race and identity politics. Often foregrounding the ongoing struggle with her personal diasporic identity and cultural expectations, she calls into question our unexamined beliefs.
Divya Mehra received her MFA from Columbia University. Mehra’s work has been included in a number of exhibitions and screenings across North America and overseas, most notably with Creative Time; MoMA PS1; MTV; The Queens Museum of Art; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; Art Asia, Miami; Plug In ICA, Winnipeg; Artspeak, Vancouver; Images Festival, Toronto; The Beijing 798 Biennale; Bielefelder Kunstverein and Latitude 28, Delhi. Recent publications featuring her work include: Art in America, Vogue India, whitewall Magazine, Border Crossings Magazine, Hyperallergic, Blouin ARTINFO, ARTnews, BlackFlash, C Magazine, and Canadian Art. Mehra currently divides her time between Winnipeg, Delhi, and New York.
Divya Mehra, The bitch blues (where does the divide begin?), 2014, Sizzurp and acrylic ink, 22 x 30 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Divya Mehra, contemporary south asian art (conflicts of perceptions l oh hey she's just too mainstream), 2014, Offset black and white printing on paper, 3 x 300 ft. Courtesy of the artist.
Divya Mehra, On tragedy (Did you hear the one about the indian?), 2012, HD video, 23 sec. Courtesy of the artist.
Divya Mehra, I will split up my father's empire (after N.W.A.), 2011, Neon sculpture, 45 x 4 x 57 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Divya Mehra, I am the american dream (still just a paki), 2010, 1987 Gold Jaguar Vanden Plas, 75 x 40 x 192 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Residents from Canada
Past Resident2014: Danish Arts Foundation
Nina Beier
Nina Beier’s practice is best characterised by rigorous investigation of inherent meaning in things and actions. Aspects of production and ideas of display, value and ownership, and the manner in which these are perceived and received, are amplified and subverted in many of her diverse works. The performance and meaning of objects – how they change through time or alter according to context and presentation – and their potential to appear contradictory are crucial and recurring themes in Beier’s work. – Adam Carr, 2013
Nina Beier (born 1975, Aarhus) graduated from the Royal College of Art, London in 2004. Her work has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions at Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp; Kunsthaus Glarus; Mostyn, Wales; Nottingham Contemporary; Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City; and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen as well as in group exhibitions at Centre Pompidou, Paris; Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris; Metro Pictures, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; Museion Bozen, Bolzano; The Artist’s Institute, New York; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Index, Stockholm; Tate Modern, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami and The Swiss Institute, New York. Beier lives and works in Berlin.
Nina Beier, Sweat no sweat, 2013, Installation. Courtesy of the artist and Mostyn, Llandudno.
Nina Beier, Heavy Hand, 2013, Installation. Courtesy of the artist and Standard, Oslo.
Nina Beier, Heavy Hand, 2013, Installation. Courtesy of the artist and Standard, Oslo.
Nina Beier, Liquid Assets, 2013, Installation. Courtesy of the artist and Glasgow Sculpture Studios.
Nina Beier, The New Public, 2012, Installation. Courtesy of the artist and Moseion Bozen, Bolzano.
Residents from Denmark
Past Resident2014: Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation
Akansha Rastogi
Akansha Rastogi develops and mediates relationships between the exhibit, curator, artist and the exhibition space. She engages with the exhibition as a medium and as a form through her curatorial and research projects. Her interest is in different kinds of knowledge production within exhibition spaces and a study of vocabularies formulated during the process of exhibition-making. In her curatorial practice, Rastogi manufactures methods and cycles of reiteration and retrieval, mnemonic conditions, access and mesh-making, in relation to the performativity of exhibitions and exhibition spaces. Her ongoing project Grazing sidelines the narrative and produces a post-embedding, self-alluding structural field that further addresses this interiority and performative duration.
Akansha Rastogi (born 1985) is Curator, Programming and Exhibitions, at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi. She completed her degree in English literature from Delhi University and Master’s Degree in the History of Art. Her recent exhibitions include Zones of Contact: Propositions on the Museum, 2013 and the Inhabiting the Museum performance series, 2011-14, KNMA. Rastogi is part of the artist collective WALA and received a FICA Public Art Grant for performance projects. She is the recipient of the 2014-15 IFA Research Grant for studying Exhibition Histories and Practices of Indian Modern and Contemporary Art.
Events & Exhibitions
Salon: Michelle-Marie Letelier and Akansha Rastogi
July 8, 2014
Ranbir Kaleka, Reading Man 2, 2011, Digital print and script-log. Courtesy of the curator and exhibition Parenthetic Exercises: Archiving Ranbir Kaleka's Studio.
Ranbir Kaleka, Slide projection of 74 found tracings, drawings, preparatory sketches, mappings, layouts and details of paintings. Courtesy of the curator and exhibition Parenthetic Exercises: Archiving Ranbir Kaleka's Studio.
Ranbir Kaleka, Parenthetic Exercises: Archiving Ranbir Kaleka's Studio, 2008-2009, Drawing on tracing paper. Courtesy of the curator and exhibition Parenthetic Exercises: Archiving Ranbir Kaleka's Studio.
Ranbir Kaleka, Grazing, 2013, Exhibition view. Courtesy of the curator.
Ranbir Kaleka, Grazing, 2013, Digital print. Courtesy of the curator.
