Medha Kapur shares a note on the five Indian artists currently featured at Wanås Konst.

Knislinge, Sweden: Wanås Konst is run by the Wanås Foundation, a non-profit art foundation located on an estate consisting of a medieval castle, an organic farm, an art gallery and a sculpture park, with a collection containing 50 permanent art works. Since 1987, Wanås has presented contemporary international art with a focus on sculpture and site-specific installations.  It represents a combination of art, nature and history. Wanås is located in Sweden, and every year world-renowned artists are invited to produce different artworks for the estate.

This summer, from 20 May till 28 October, the Indian artist Srinivasa Prasad from Bangalore is being represented with one of his pieces featured in an exhibition on the Wanås Konst grounds. Using natural materials such as mud, hay, water, grains, and cow dung, Prasad incorporates the essence of performance art in his works and emphasizes the interaction between the audience and the work.  Here, his work entails a a 40-metre long coiled stretch of willows planted on the lawns of Wanås, that would measure 500 metres if it were straight. The saplings are planted in the form of a labyrinth forming the artist’s signature in Kannada. This work has been co-commissioned by the Creative India Foundation.  Founded in 2010, the Foundation has been instrumental in creating opportunities for Indian sculptors to explore and push their creative horizons internationally through various platforms such as residency programs and production grants for exhibitions, fairs, and sculpture festivals.

This season, Wanås Konst has also opened an entirely new room dedicated to film and video art. In the film program, “But a pit stop on a long journey“, the Indian artists Neha Choksi, Rohini Devasher, Shilpa Gupta and Asim Waqif present viewers with loaded and imaginary landscapes. Go through ARTINFO’s slideshow of stills from the featured films to learn more about the artists and their works screened at Wanås Konst.