Navigating Geometries

14 May 2020

Folly Measures

09 January 2020

Drawn Space

08 December 2016

Memento Mori

12 June 2015

His-Story project

08 March 2019

Distillery Shed, recorded on 6th October 2018

Spaces and places have a momentary and uncertain existence that allow them to be construed as chronicles of Linier time, encompassing the days, weeks and months that have passed between then and now and as a continuum. The shifting balance between permanence and transition is evocative of life that once existed and can be perceived as temporal maps of architectural fashions, memorials to alterations of that space which is intentionally conceived, mutates and is in a constant state of flux.

However, the site-specific floor work displaces this immediacy of time to tumbles back into history, leaving one to wonder whether these drawn tiles are markers of architectural residues, or an intervention to add to the history of this space.

Project Collaborator: Space Studio | Baroda

SqW:Lab

10 October 2018

2018 – ongoing

Square Works Laboratory (SqW:Lab) is a 3 month programme in Mumbai for cultural practitioners from all of the world. The aim is for 10 creatives to come together, play, work site responsively, showcase their process in the form of drawings, doodles and notes, and be inspired by each other and find innovative legacy projects.

SqW:Lab project is multi faceted with thanks to the five core founding partners, artist Vishwa Shroff, architect Katsushi Goto, curator Charlie Levine, artist Tash Kahn and art writer Rosanna Van Mierlo. Each of the five founding partners will invite another creative talent to join in the conversations, exhibitions and Play Projects, creating a 2018 cohort of 10 inaugural fellows

Project Collaborator: Katsushi Goto, Charlie Levine, Tash Kahn, Rosanna Van Mierlo

In Residence: Swiss Cottage Gallery

13 January 2018

Vishwa Shroff’s work explores spatial and narrative possibilities taken from urban and domestic scenarios. The accidental encounter and shifting modes of attention with which the artist perceives objects allow her to generate a record of isolated artefacts that become the basis of her work. To the artist, the unique features of these architectural motifs are complicated entities that are developed in space and time. As the objects transform, they confront the viewer and change our collective consciousness towards an always shifting balance between permanence and transition. As original artefacts they resonate an acquired memory and attest to attitudes of generations.

Project Collaborator: Swiss Cottage Gallery | Camden Arts Center

Guards at the Taj

07 October 2017

When Danish Hussain and Vrajesh Hirjee invited us to work on the sets and stage layout of Guards at The Taj by Rajiv Joseph, what struck us most was the landscape of patterns that the Taj Mahal at Agra create. The plan of the Taj Mahal was conceived as a juxtaposition of the iconographic Eternal and Worldly reflected throughout the site plan, architecture, motifs, patterns and colour usage.

The complex includes the monument, peripheral gardens, Jilaukahana and the Taj Ganji – Market and caravan-sarai that are no longer in existence. While the monument and the gardens symbolise the Eternal, the Jilaukhana is perceived as the transitory space and the market symbolised the Worldly, making a reflective plan between the monument and the Ganji. Made in red sandstone and White Marble, the colours too are indicative of this, where Red, taken from Islamic imperial tents and the colour of the Kshatriyas symbolise the Worldly, the White comes from the image of Janat and is also the colour of the Brahmins.

Project Collaborator: Katsushi Goto, Danish Hussein, Vrajesh Hirjee

Postulating Premises

17 April 2015

5th collaborative book Project : vishwa Shroff and Katsushi Goto
Archival Ink Jet Printing on Paper

The book- Postulating Premises is the 5th collaborative project between Architect
Katsushi Goto and Artist Vishwa Shroff. As with all their previous collaborations,
this work too is the convergence of both their concerns at this time in their individual
practices. They have chosen here, a traditional binding so as to not divert our
intentions/attention away from their concerns.

So far it stood that the format of the book works as a comprehensive medium to
summarize individual investigations. At the same time Vishwa and Goto constantly
explore possibilities of mediums and formats, like the display methodology used for
postulating Premises. In that sense, they look at the projects more as spatial constructs
rather than medium specific objects/artists books. There remains an additional fantasy
to experiment with these constructs as full/room scale installations that follow a
sequential layering employed in their overall practice.

Project Collaborator: Katsushi Goto

Cornered Stories

06 February 2015

Web project that invited a series of artists, architects, thinkers and creatives to think about a [type of] corner that means something to them and to then write/illustrate something about it. It could be factual, fictional or illustrative.

The functionality of a corner is fairly obvious. Anyone who has built a lego house or tried to make a paper airplane knows how important a fold or corner is to enhancing strength – a corner creates sides, angles, voids and structure. We know the ingenuity of it in terms of architecture, building and making but we also know of the emotional connotations of a corner, being put it in the corner, etc., the dismissive act of the unimportance of an interior corner. Unlike that of an external one, perhaps, where you cannot stand within it but you can hide behind it. In either interior or exterior guise it is safe, a place offering protection or for reflection. The corner is a place we take for granted, a place ignored and a space only of functionality.

However, as hinted upon above the corner is so much more than just structurally sound.

Project Collaborator: Charlie Levine

Voyeur

29 October 2014

Some Images of works installed at Brooklyn Fire Proof. Curated by Charlie Levine for Trove at Sluice Exchange Rates: Bushwick Exposition

Project Collaborator: Brooklyn Fire Station, Sluice: Exchange Rate, NY

Tale Tellers

01 January 2013

Participated twice – in 2013 and 2018

The Tale Tellers is a project conceived by UK based curator Charlie Levine. Artists, writers and thinkers have been invited to interpret their favourite stories, songs or poems via a series of images that represent key plot points within that story. Each selection of images tells a complete tale. Levine started this project in November 2013 whilst spending a month in New York. It was during a talk by Jens Hoffman and Triple Candie, as part of Performa 2013, that Levine got inspired to realise The Tale Tellers.

Project Collaborator: Participation only.

Memories of a Known City

20 May 2012

I walk about, everything is familiar and yet I am lost, as if I had never seen it before. The familiarity allows me to locate my self but I remain disoriented, absorbing these somewhat new surroundings. A window here, a door there, I know this place. I used to eat my lunch on those steps and walked this route everyday. The fountain has a nickname and I know what it is. But just there was the sandwich shop and its gone now, replaced by something I know from somewhere else.

The blue circular window catches my eye, I wonder if I have seen it before or is it the blue of the tiles that catch my attention? I am lost in this conscious game of memory and discovery. I keep walking, and as one day blurs into the next, so does this game. By the end of two weeks, I am not sure anymore of what is a memory from a long time ago and what it is I just found yesterday.

Project Collaborator: Birmingham Artist Residency

One Eye! Two Eyes! Three Eyes

06 March 2012

From the moment one wakes up until way past attempts to falls asleep the mind constantly hammers with matters, both momentarily consequential and echoing memories; these are the springboards from which narrative is developed and becomes the basis of my work. The narrative itself is reflective of conversations, literary puns, film dialogs, poetry, fictional descriptions and everyday observations. Akin to looking at family albums, the works evoke non-chronological disjoined memory to construct arranged imagery upon which further personal deliberations are possible.

The works do not seek to portray experience of humans, but rather they offer an imagined experience of the objects themselves and explore the possibilities of transferring the attention with which objects are perceived, while addressing that thought is not liner, but assorted and that the trivialities of everyday life are abundant

Project Collaborator: ACME Project Space | London

Room

01 April 2011

4th Collaborative book project : Vishwa Shroff and Katsushi Goto
Archival Ink Jet Printing on Paper

‘Room’ is the fourth collaborative project between architect Katsushi Goto and artist
Vishwa Shroff. Goto and Shroff have been exploring with the form of the book for
more than half a decade, unfolding a narrative with each fold. From their first flip
book that was shown in 2010 to ‘Postulating Premises’ (2015), the artists in ‘Room’
have created fantasy spaces that belong to an imaginary protagonist.

The artists started with the idea of creating a staircase running down the book. The
idea of the book unfolds with the staircase leading to various floors, unveiling rooms,
which would need to be occupied by a person. Thus the book in its physical form
comprises of an overlapping narrative at all times.

Project Collaborator: Katsushi Goto