OFFSET PROJECTS

CREATING ARTIST BOOKS WITH RADHA PANDEY
Exploring the book making process for artist books
13th-15th March
11am-5pm
New Delhi, INDIA

COST OF THE WORKSHOP : INR 12,500
Includes workshop tutorial, binding tools, paper and materials, venue rentals.
(To be paid once a confirmation of your participation has been sent to you)

SUBMISSION DEADLINE : 28TH FEBRUARY 2020

HOW TO APPLY:
Participants should have a body of work in an advanced state, not necessarily completed, ready for a book.
Applications should be submitted by filling up the form at :
APPLY FOR WORKSHOP

– Applicants can be practitioners of multiple mediums but with work ready for a book.
– If you already have a draft or dummy ready, please do share scans/images of the same.
– Please submit a maximum of 10 images/works/text-excerpt to be placed in the book, along with a brief writeup about your proposed project.
– To provide a wider selection you can create a PDF of max 25 images.
– For those submitting images please ensure file size is no longer than 1080 pixels on the long end @75dpi.

The workshop aims to bring about a collaboration between Radha and the participants to look at new ways of reading books, understanding the various elements within it and the role they play in book building; limitations of the medium and alternative methodologies that can be created within the book format which question and challenge the notion of art books as objects of creative expression.
Within the format of the 3 days we will be covering the history of the book and its evolution into the contemporary format in India, conversation and discussions based on the works of the participants- understanding and questioning the different formats of book making meant for the works presented and learning how to bind your own book.

All participants will be provided with binding tools that they can take home with them along with the books that they would have built and bound by the end of the workshop.

Please note that all emails for participation confirmed by Offset are non-refundable in case of a no-show. For more details please email us at offsetprojects@gmail.com or visit us at http://www.offsetprojects.in

Can the process of image making lead to introspection, healing and exploration of our own beings? In the books presented, the authors of their works have put forward a deeply personal engagement of the photographic process, the exploration of one’s own vulnerability seen through the prism of the lens. Many indigenous tribes believe that when a photograph is taken, it captures the soul of those whom it photographs. In keeping their presence alive within the images the photographers have created, the book becomes a testament to the conversation of their interior landscape. They leave tiny fragments of relationships – with themselves, their families, gender and anxieties and celebrations emerging from these relationship dynamics.

1. Us&Beyond – Thuma Collective
2. Happy Goodnight – Sanjeev Saith
3. Harvest – Valentina Abenavoli
4. The Middle of Somewhere – Sam Harris
5. Kagerou – Yusuke Tagaki
6. Instant Light – Andrei Tarkovsky
7. Call Me Heena- Shahria Sharmin
8. On Abortion – Laia Abril
9. Ravens – Masahisa Fukase

Set against the backdrop of an artists’ studio garden, the Pitara invited its readers to find their corner, their spot of shade under the trees, to observe, engage and become a part of the journey undertaken by these photographers.

Photographs courtesy : Adil Hasan

Offset Pitara One
Chennai Photo Biennale 2019
A Reading Room curated by Anshika Varma

The photographic document has stood over time to present itself as an unbiased, detached witness to a fact often erasing the presence and sensitivities of the photographer behind it. The supposition of a final truth, a single uncompromising fact that can be captured, has placed upon the photograph and its creator a great weight. Within this medium, the growth and emergence of the photobook has allowed an authorship to the act of creation of personal independant voices.

The influence of ones’ perception in the creation of our truths is presented with greater strength with the form of the book. Objects, situations and narratives become symbolic of these multiple realities. While envisaging the aspects of our metaphorical environments, the books included look to prod deeper into an understanding of how we perceive the world today. It is keen to explore approaches to photographic bodies of book-making that give light to the various truths we surround ourselves with.

The Offset Pitara is keen to look at the multiplicities that exist within spheres of our public worlds, mass migrations, environmental impact on the human race and in personal associations of reality connected by memories and relationships.

Photobooks exhibited :

1. A proposition for departure- Sohrab Hura
2. A Peal of Spring Thunder- Ishan Tankha
3. Call Me Heena- Shahria Sharmin
4. Control – Cagdas Erdogan
5. Dalit- A Quest For Dignity- Nepal Picture Library
6. Ebifananyi- Set of 8 books – Andrea Stulteins
7. Harvest- Valentina Abenavoli
8. Hold Nothing Dear- Alaknanda Nag
9. Ill be looking at the moon but ill be seeing you- Harikrishna Kattragada
10. Kanu’s Gandhi – Kanu Gandhi
11. Look its Getting Sunny Out Side- Sohrab Hura
12. My Birth- Carmen Winant
13. Shauna 2007-2009 Sean Lee
14. Shenaznameh- Amak Mahmoodian
15. Sun Gardens Cyanotypes by Anna Atkins
16. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency- Nan Goldin
17. There are no homosexuals in Iran- Laurence Rasti
18. This is Mars- Xavier Barral
19. When Abba Was Ill- Adil Hasan
20. Witness- Edited by Sanjay Kak
21. Will My Mannequin be Home When I Return- Arko Datto

*A special thank you to Paroma Mukherjee for lending her words for the exhibit of the Witness book during the Biennale.

Offset Projects held a two day interactive session with the students of the Creative Documentary Program at the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication. The programme included a talk with Valentina Abenavoli from Akina Books, a one-on-one review session with the students on their final year project and an engaging reading of photo-books with the Offset Pitara.

With support from KHOJ Studio in New Delhi, Offset Projects held a one day workshop on book binding techniques for a small and intimate group of people. The workshop covered various aspects of making one’s own book and discussed the importance of a synchronicity with ones work to the paper, spine, cover and their various formats for making the book into an object.

Spread over a period of 6 days, our selected photographers worked on formats of story-telling, editing and book-binding to bring together a vision for their personal work into a book format. The workshop, led by Valentina Abenavoli from Akina Books, was centered around discussions and conversations on photography, mythologies, film screenings, and book readings.

Studio 365 offered immense support as our location partner for the workshop.