IN IT TOGETHER The Art Fundraiser for COVID 19 Relief An artist-led initiative to support relief work carried out by Facilitated by PARTICIPATING ARTISTS AKSHAY SETHI NILIMA SHEIKH ANJU DODIYA PARAMJIT SINGH ANJUM SINGH PRABHAKAR PACHPUTE ANUPAM ROY PRANATI PANDA ARPITA SINGH PRANEET SOI ASIM WAQIF RAGHU RAI ATUL BHALLA RAKHI PESWANI ATUL DODIYA RAM KUMAR BHARAT SIKKA RAM RAHMAN BIJOY JAIN RANBIR KALEKA DESMOND LAZARO RATHIN BARMAN DHARMENDRA PRASAD REENA SAINI KALLAT G R IRANNA RENUKA RAJIV GAURI GILL SACHIN GEORGE SEBASTIAN GIGI SCARIA SAMIT DAS GULAMMOHAMMED SHEIKH SEHER SHAH JAGANNATH PANDA SHEILA MAKHIJANI JITISH KALLAT SHILPA GUPTA MADHVI PAREKH SHRIMANTI SAHA MANU PAREKH SUDARSHAN SHETTY MANISHA PAREKH SUDHIR PATWARDHAN MANISH NAI SUHASINI KEJRIWAL MARTAND KHOSLA SUMAKSHI SINGH MITHU SEN SUNIL PADWAL MOONIS AHMAD SHAH TALLUR L N N PUSHPAMALA TEHMEENA FIRDOS NEHA THAKAR VIBHA GALHOTRA NIKHIL CHOPRA VIVAN SUNDARAM IN IT TOGETHER is an artist-led initiative seeking to raise awareness and support organisations that are working to alleviate the severity of the crisis caused by COVID-19 epidemic and the nation-wide lockdown on migrant workers as well as poor and vulnerable members of our country. To control the rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the country, an emergency lockdown was announced on 25 March, 2020. However, its sudden declaration stranded several thousands of people away from their homes without a guaranteed source of income, food, shelter and medical supplies. Others have lost livelihood and are unable to find the means to sustain themselves. The fundraiser initiative is aimed at raising contributions to support the relief work carried out by two organisations Goonj and Karwan e Mohabbat in many of the states to provide timely sustenance and basic necessities to those affected. The focus is on providing cooked food and dry ration packets to stranded migrant workers, the violence-affected families, vulnerable populations like aged, disabled and refugees as well as other distressed families and individuals. Facilitated by Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, the fundraiser brings together members of the art community who have generously pledged artworks to the cause. Fifty five artists from across generations and cities have come together to form a very special ‘art pool’ made of prints, photographs, drawings, paintings and sculptures. Each donor who contributes to the fundraiser will receive an artwork in return. This exchange marks a moment of solidarity and our ability to come together in moments of crisis and extend a hand to those that are the ‘last in the line.’ In this momentary socially distanced nature of our community, we seek new ways to form connections and express our social responsibility towards those in dire need. How to Participate 1. To get the process going, please get in touch with the FICA Team ([email protected]) to confirm participation and indicate your donation bracket. 2. You will then be invited to make a donation to either organisations directly. You can pledge an amount in any one of these brackets: Rs 25,000 | Rs 50,000 | Rs 1,00,000 | Rs 2,00,000 | Rs 3,00,000 and above Please note there are a limited number of artworks in each bracket. Please see the following pages for further details. 3. Once this donation is made please share the receipt of this at [email protected] with the subject heading Donation Receipt. You can also share a screen shot of the page. 4. The fundraiser will culminate in recipients being gifted an artwork donated by artists for the cause. 5. Please note that the transportation of the works will be borne by the donor. This process can be carried out only once the lockdown is lifted. FICA will support with the logistics. 6. All contributions made are eligible for tax deduction of 50% u/s 80G of the Income Tax Act 1961. The certificates and receipts will be received directly from the organization where the donation was made. Please visit our website www.ficart.org for further details on the IN IT TOGETHER fundraiser. You can write to [email protected] / [email protected] for further details A Note from FICA Team As our country comes to a standstill to deal with the crisis perpetuated by COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown, we are put in an unnatural state of stasis - some of us are locked in our home while others are left to fend for themselves without resources and livelihood. This is without doubt a life-altering moment that makes us stop and think about privilege and precarity. about our immensely heterogenous and divided society, and about the uncertain future that awaits us. The title of the fundraiser ‘In It Together’ was not so much about assuming that our experiences of this crisis are the same but about the possibility of sharing and supporting each other through it. Gauri Gill was one of the first to respond to our call for this fundraiser. Sharing a poignant photograph of a rudimentary wooden structure, she attached this note with it: “At the best of times, home is a precarious idea for many. It is shelter built on the back of one's livelihood, often transient. Today, when many workers in India's mostly informal economy have tragically lost their jobs, unable to afford rent for basic quarters in the city, yet unable to reach their ancestral homes in the village, where families and emotional ties exist, the idea of home becomes another luxury available only to those with power and capital. Yet, even though resources are inequitably shared, if COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that we are essentially interdependent. Migrant workers and the privileged rich and middle classes, people of all faiths and non-faiths, men and women, the young and old, are cut from the same fabric, and share an ecosystem: a collective home, country, planet, in which we exist as equals. The vulnerability of any one makes the whole weak and unstable. Each person must have food, safe shelter, money to cover basic needs and access to medical care. We're all in it together—this is the time to finally know it." The fundraiser is not ours alone. It is an artist-initiated platform - one that we were invited to facilitate and structure. We have in turn reached out to others - artists, gallerists, donors and friends – to help in various ways and together developed this online initiative. Artists joined the cause with a readiness that was heartwarming. We invited them from different parts of the country and also across generations because we wanted the fundraiser to express the multiplicity of contexts from which practices emerge. Amidst discussions on the fundraiser, we exchanged notes about the precarious times ahead for creative practitioners and also the different conditions under which artists are reconfiguring life and work. The collection that has been gathered – of prints, paintings, sculptures and photographs – commemorates the solidarity expressed by the artistic community. We want to use this opportunity to thank them for their generosity. Finding our ground between feeling and action, Nilima Sheikh sums up this collective initiative: The role of the artist in reaching out and sharing the suffering of others sounds rather sentimental to me. However, this fundraiser gives us an opportunity to link ourselves as a collective to reach groups and organisations doing relief work rather than as civic individuals. It is a learning and healing proposition. Artists often come together: during natural and man-made catastrophes; we have in the past often rallied together for raising funds. And this time, if we are in it together, we can be engaging together.” Image in the previous page: Shilpa Gupta, I want to live with no fear Digital print on archival paper 12.5 x 16.5 inches 2018 Edition: 2/6 Donation Bracket: Rs 25,000 10 artworks Artists include Shrimanti Saha, Akshay Sethi, Tehmeena Firdos, Renuka Rajiv, Prabhakar Pachpute and Ram Kumar (Limited Edition Print) (Some images shared below) SHRIMANTI SAHA Shelter Graphite, pencil color, watercolor, casein on paper 20.5x16 inches 2019 NEHA THAKAR From the series, Frozen Homes Photo Performance, 8 x 11 inches each 2016 RENUKA RAJIV Monolow 9.5 x 6.3 inches each Monotype 2013 Donation Bracket: Rs 50,000 10 artworks Artists include N Pushpamala, Anupam Roy, Pranati Panda, Rakhi Peswani, Sachin George Sebastian , Rathin Barman and Martand Khosla (Some images shared below) SACHIN GEORGE SEBASTIAN Untitled Handcut archival paper 21 x 14.5 x 2.5 inches 2017 MARTAND KHOSLA Untitled 5.8 x 8.3 inches each ink on paper 2018 PUSHPAMALA N Eugenics Giclee print ( archival inkjet print) 36x36 inches Edition of 10 2020 PRANATI PANDA Breathing Inside 1 Watercolour, ink and hand stitched embroidery on rice 19 inches diameter 2019 ANUPAM ROY Vertical landscape Distemper and black pigment on 2 mm correx corrugated plastic sheet Size: 6ft x 2ft; Year: 2018 RATHIN BARMAN We Have Other Views on This Paint and brass inlay on concrete panel 16 x 16 x 1 inches approx (Wall mounted work) Indicative image 2018 Donation Bracket: Rs 1,00,000 15 artworks Artists include Seher Shah, Moonis Ahmad Shah, Paramjit Singh, Gigi Scaria, G R Iranna, Nikhil Chopra, Prabhakar Pachpute, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Sudarshan Shetty and Praneet Soi (Some images shared below) GIGI SCARIA Untitled, Watercolour on paper 14 x 18.75 inches 2016 PRABHAKAR PACHPUTE Exclamation Charcoal and acrylic on paper 19.7 x 25.6 inches 2016 SEHER SHAH Hewn (splinter) Woodcut on A4 size grid paper Monoprint 2014 PRANEET SOI Building, Mumbai with a study of a tree in winter, in Amsterdam