The Art Loft and French Association for Abandoned Childhood present Snehasand – 50 Years of Love. Arzan, innovative sculptor, known for his unconventional creations and his love of children shares a few things with MissMalini.com about the installations… xoxo
“Sweet dreams are made of these. Who am I to disagree?” – Annie Lennox
1. The entire “Snehasadan – 50 Years of Love” project was spearheaded by The Art Loft, who approached me, Brinda Miller and Sunil Padwal with the concept.
2. There is also a French artistic group called Hypothesis 222 (Christine Delbecq, Emmanuelle Grand and Alain Steck) headed by Vincent Lauth, who form a part of this collaboration.
3. The French group, stayed in Bombay over several weeks, and worked in tandem with the children from the NGO called Snehasadan, creating super canvases, which are painted on either side.
4. We the Bombay artists’ group, went around scouting for elements to build up this installation. After several trips through the streets of the city, and going through various objects, we decided to use the “mousetrap” as our main unit.
5. After sorting out our ideas we met the French artists several times and exchanged ideas about our work, and they too discussed how they were planning to make their canvassed into 3d boxes.
6. Myself, Brinda and Sunil, spent two days with the Snehasadan children, getting them to paint and draw on wish cards we had prepared for them. We also collected some elements from them, which meant something to them in their daily lives, like hair clips, torches, toys etc etc. we also took photographs of the children there.
7. Then the actual work of constructing the installation began. We sew all the mousetraps together in the desired manner and then composed the complete cube by inserting the items we had collected from them, the photographs and the wish cards too.
8. Finally the entire installation along with the cubes made by the French artists were exhibited at the VT station on the platform. It was quite interesting to see the public have a curious look at the installation, wondering what so many mouse traps were doing all in one place!
9. Finally the exhibits will be on display at the High Street Phoenix compound, where we expect tremendous feedback by the visitors. The exhibits will not rest here, as they revel all over the country and to some cities in France too. Do come visit!
