N a v j o t   A l t a f

A  P l a c e  i n  N e w  Y o r k

18 February  - 5 April, 2010

The Guild Art Gallery is proud to present Navjot Altaf's research and interactive project ‘A Place in New York’.

Navjot was in New York on an eight week artists’ residency – the outcome was an interactive project ‘A Place in New York – New York’, done shortly after she had exhibited ‘Bombay Shots’ at The Guild, Mumbai in 2008, this project can be seen as an extension of that. Despite many political undercurrents, Navjot finds both the cities have people from diverse cultures and backgrounds making these cities very vital and dynamic.

“I am interested in the interactive and the dialogical process of art making, ‘Bombay Shots’ and my earlier work ‘Mumbai Meri Jaan’ helped me understand people’s reasons for migrating and their relationship / associations with the city and sites they relate to, visit, remember and like to be photographed with – in the process both the participant and the artist create a new dialogue and historicize such places… The very process of engaging with the participants of this project in New York and the places that have special meaning and experience for them builds up another layer of memory – overlapping the earlier ones. Renewing with this revisit may be a different perspective of the city and life around it and building up complex relationships with the places. What it does is, build bridges towards understanding and documenting, to a certain degree the complex web of relationships of an evolving and ever-changing city, and its affect it may have on its inhabitants. It brings into focus the interdependency of the people and places, of how a city acquires a certain culture and character through its inhabitants and how the inhabitants co-inform themselves and get influenced by the culture. It is an ever evolving dynamic relationship - a culmination of collective forces that gets built up with an individual’s character and aspirations”. - Navjot Altaf

Navjot Altaf’s work has been shown in Zones of Contact, XV Sydney Biennale, Australia 2006; Lacuna in Testimony, Frost Art Museum, Florida, 2009; Public Places Private Spaces,  Newark Museum, New York, 2008;  Tiger by the Tail: Women Artists Transforming Culture,  Brandies University / Museum  Boston;  Continuity and Transformation,  Provincia di Milano, Italy; Groundworks, Carnegie Mellon University, (RMG) Pittsburgh, U.S.A.; Another Passage To India, Theatre Saint Gervais and Musee d’ Ethnographie, Geneva.Switzerland; Zoom – Art in Contemporary India, Edificia Sede de  Caixo Garal de Depositos, Lisbon; Century City - Bombay/Mumbai: ‘City Politics and Visual Culture in the 90’s’, Tate Modern, London, U.K.; 'SubTerrain' Indian Contemporary Art, House Of  World Culture, Berlin. Solo exhibitions include: ‘Touch’, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai; ‘Bombay Shots’, an interactive photo based project, The Guild, Mumbai; ‘Water Weaving’, Video Installation, Talwar Gallery, New York, U.S.A.; ‘Junctions 1 2 3’, The Guild, Mumbai among others.