Latest on the blog

Radical Housing and Socially-Engaged Art

Read Now
2

Khoj has initiated the first phase of interaction and engagement between The British School, Chanakyapuri, India and Redeemer Lutheran College, Biloela, Australia. Distinguish Nature examines how noting differences and similarities in our daily encounters with space, shapes how we understand the world around us. The project aims to animate the ‘need’ to make sense of that otherness or familiarity which is naturally embedded into a person or a place, no matter whether we have been there before and seen it or not.

In Distinguish Nature an analogue film camera will be placed in the hands of children in India and children in Australia; each child is given 16 clicks of the button encouraged to capture part of their lives they feel are unique and different, that which defines their culture, their society and their space. The 16 clicks will be broken down to define 4 landscape images, 4 portraits, 4 close up shots and 4 textured/patterned surfaces. Breaking the approach down in this way ensures the students think about the entirely of their surroundings.

11
12

These students will then be assigned a pen pal in the opposite country; no words will be exchanged – these children will only converse through the image. They will share their space and their visual story with a stranger; they will be introduced to a world of children across the globe of a comparable age in a parallel time and space. Through this exchange they will locate their place in the world, they will understand what is different and what is similar and why both these expressions are valuable and important.

3

On Saturday the 6th of February Khoj employee Lleah Smith facilitated a 3 hours workshop with the students of The British School; the workshop focused on exploring individual diversity through objects and spaces of significance. The group also explored composition and balance within an image/frame. The focus of this workshop was to encourage the students to notice subtle variations when viewing an object and/or an artwork, and to allow these observations to inform their personal framing choices. They were prompted to identify what was special, unique and important to them, as starting points for building their image archive, which they will share with their Australian pen pal. Observing lights and darks through Noton, was equally a tool which aimed to stretch their sensibility to colours, textures, light spill, pattern and repetition within nature and the built environment. These elements will also be explored through their photographic essay, documenting the ‘individual’ in their immediate time and space.

8
1