Monday 31 December 2007

“See: Saw”

“See: Saw” collocates the collaboration between Pascale Mira, Michael Husmann Tschaeni and Aditya Pande. [dated December 2007]

The art show titled “See: Saw” collocates the unique collaboration between the works of Pascale Mira, Michael Husmann Tschaeni and Aditya Pande. Curated by Dr. Alka Pande, the exhibition is open from 3 - 13 December 2007, at The Stainless Gallery in New Delhi.

About the Artists
Pascale Mira & Michael Husmann Tschaeni, roam between comic and art and have carried this over the years with continuing international success. It was like two completely different, somewhat incompatible picture languages had collided when they started working together. But somehow they managed to create pictures, stories and rooms together, without having to change their own individual styles or expressions in any way at all. The result is a rather unique picture world whose quality lays in the harmonious confrontation of two totally different artists. The Tschaenis live and work in Switzerland.

Aditya Pande studied graphic design. However, his current work is a departure from graphic design and explores drawing-based work; hand drawn and digitally generated vector forms, as well as a combination of both. Aditya investigates the quality of play in work; He likes to build up erratic complexity in his work and then subverts it by picking out patterns and developing them into recognizable elements or rational forms and narratives. He lays a lot of emphasis on working using his hands and at the same time is fascinated by the use of digital tools to develop a vocabulary of visuals that end up being fused together in his work.
Goodbye to Gandhi? Travels in the New India

Swiss anthropologist, journalist and writer Bernard Imhasly's book 'Goodbye to Gandhi? launched [dated December 2007]

Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council and Penguin Books India will jointly launch 'Goodbye to Gandhi? Travels in the New India' by Bernard Imhasly on Friday 14 December 2007 at the India International Centre. Madhu Trehan, journalist and Urvashi Butalia, publisher Zubaan Books will discuss the book with the author.

About the author:
Bernard Imhasly, a linguist and anthropologist by profession, has been the South Asia correspondent for European newspapers since 1990, notably the Neue Zuercher Zeitung. In 1972–73 he undertook anthropological fieldwork in Bangladesh, which resulted in a book, The Process of Modernisation in Bangladesh, co-authored with H.P. Müller and H. Grombach. He was subsequently appointed as lecturer in linguistics at Zurich University. In 1978, he joined the Swiss Foreign Service, with postings in London, Geneva, Berne and Delhi. Deciding to stay on in India, he then took up the assignment as a foreign correspondent.

About the book:
Bernard Imhasly, anthropologist, journalist and writer, journeys from Imphal to Cyberabad and Bangalore, and from Champaran to Porbandar, looking at a new India keeping Gandhi’s ideas and values in mind. He finds a society where Gandhi is alive but his virulence is missing, a polity which worships him but easily forgets his guiding principles, and a morality which thrives on oppression rather than on the search for truth, a principle Gandhi held paramount. While many of his interlocutors decry Gandhi, there are a surprising number of people for whom he remains a yardstick of their life and work. Goodbye to Gandhi?: Travels in the New India examines how the choices that India made as an independent nation have shaped the country’s politics, its culture and its people. While India acquires a new-found confidence and optimism in its economic future, Bernard Imhasly, in his engaging travels through current-day India, listening for echoes of Gandhi’s voice, finds a cacophony of voices—alluring, exciting and sometimes exasperating.