BUILDING BRIDGES – Art & Deal Correspondent
And international, New Media Project; Building Bridges is an international collaborative project between Ushmita Sahu and Emergent Art Space, who brought together a group of 14 young artists from India and overseas to work together for a journey of self discovery and exploration using only the virtual platform. The current youth generation has grown up in a world where the virtual platform is just as intrinsic to life as the physical realm in which we exist, thus the decision to curate and open a discursive platform entirely online seems a natural progression of the digital zeitgeist of our times.
Through an open call, 14 artists whose work relates to the digital realm were selected, and a closed online blog was created as a platform for the sharing of ideas and concepts relating to identity and what the term means in an age of globalization, where perhaps identity is a more fluid concept than it has ever been previously. Setting aside ‘economic globalization’ for now, the phenomena of the internet and the exponential rate of technological advancement in the past decade has meant rapid exposure to ideas, cultures and concepts which may have never been accessible before. And with this increased access to new concepts, ideas and communication we are seeing a marked shift in collective consciousness. In comparison to the global-political scene we experience today, where the situation looks increasingly apocalyptic and intolerant as time passes, ‘Building Bridges’ as a project is an attempt to harness the digital tools at our fingertips and use them as a connective platform in a political system which utilizes the tactics of ‘Divide and Rule’.
The process of the blog was intrinsic to ‘Building Bridges’ as an exploration of the way the virtual platform can be used to form connective links, and the way that virtual space can offer an expressive outlet in a way which is unique to any other form of communication. One can think of the virtual space of the internet as a digital jungle, or like a sock draw which is overflowing with ideas, imagery and concepts. We know that the role of social media has changed the way we consume and perceive arts and entertainment by removing the idea of the ‘middle man’ and creating a direct link with the artist and the audience. As well as this, the digital media platform offers a certain sense of anonymity, and in this ‘virtual jungle’ we see the formations of communities built around shared interests and ideas. Thus the Building Bridges blog created a virtual supportive environment which encouraged the germination of ideas free from the judgment people may face in their direct physical environments. Thus concepts relating to gender identity, cultural identity (or lack thereof) transmigration, body identity and postcolonialism were allowed to grow and thrive.
One such example of this is the work of Tatjana Henderieckx whose work deals with concepts relating to her identity as a woman of Vietnamese origin who was adopted and bought up in Belgium, and later in life went back to Vietnam to meet her birth parents. There is the eternal question of who we are in terms of the space we occupy and how that lends meaning to our identities. Tatjana is one such artist for whom the blogging process informed and developed her work; in the beginning her work took a more withdrawn and minimalist approach, however through the sharing of ideas and experiences she was encouraged to delve into the emotional aspects of the discovery and re-discovery of self in relation to nationality, ethnicity and the physical space in which she exists. She has worked in both video and book format previously, however the final outcome in ‘Building Bridges’ was a book containing a range of imagery and includes a letter from her birth parents and photographs of her both parents, and the addition of other personal anecdotes and imagery.