This summer, CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile) will present Gathering Delights, the largest-ever solo exhibition of Indian artist N S Harsha in Hong Kong, as part of CHAT’s dynamic 2019 Summer Programme, following its successful grand opening in March 2019. Running from 28 July to 3 November 2019, the exhibition will be complemented by a series of engaging activities for the young and old, underlining CHAT’s commitment to provide a multidisciplinary experience for the community that interweaves contemporary art, design, heritage, community and craftsmanship.
Curated by CHAT’s Co-Director Takahashi Mizuki, Gathering Delights will feature over 20 works by N S Harsha that spans over 20 years of his career. The exhibition will present his expansive artistic practice of paintings, sculptures, participatory work as well as community programmes in collaboration with one of India’s first organic farmers from Krac-A-Dawna Organic Farm, offering a fresh cognitive lens through which he explores how nature stimulates creative thinking and artistic forms. As one of India’s leading artists of his generation, N S Harsha’s home city Mysuru (formerly named Mysore) in southern India – known as the royal capital of the Kingdom of Mysore from the 16th century until the Indian independence of 1947 – continuously inspires him with its traditional beauty and cultural dynamism. Harsha often deploys textiles and sewing machines in his works as materials as well as key motifs, depicting personal memories and collective gestures that weave human acts with the state of the world and the universe.
Drawing from a broad spectrum of Indian painting traditions and popular arts, as well as the Western canon, Harsha creates quietly philosophical and luminous works that reflect on geopolitical order and our increasingly technologically-mediated relationship with the world. In Nations (2007-2019), a monumental installation where pieces of cloth adorned with the flags of the United Nations’ member states are draped on 193 foot-operated sewing machines, denoting industrialisation and labour as a key driver for developing nations.
Harsha also engages audiences in his works such as Sky Gazers (2010/2019), where viewers become part of the artwork as they gaze up at a mirrored ceiling which reflects the face-covered floor looking up to the cosmos and beyond; as well as Future (2007/2019), where the artist works with 100 school children who will express their ambitions and dreams on adult-sized shirts, which they will later wear as part of a parade in October and subsequently be displayed in the exhibition.
Complementing Harsha’s contemplative and visually-arresting showcase of past and recent paintings, CHAT will also host a series of multidisciplinary hands-on workshops as well as lectures in the Summer Programme.
‘We are thrilled to be working with N S Harsha to present the largest show of his works here in Hong Kong. Textile is a significant part of India’s heritage, from the successes of its global textile industry prior to the British imperial rule, to the use of the charkha as a symbol of India’s independence from the British, in addition to the use of bold colours and unique patterns in Indian textiles. While N S Harsha does not specifically emphasise the varied use of textile and textile-related motifs in his works, his works are clearly rooted in the culture and history of his home country. Through Gathering Delights, we hope that audiences will be able to see how textile is a blank canvas that allows for imagination and interpretation, highlighting CHAT’s goal to foster cross-disciplinary experimentation and encourage the exploration of new possibilities in contemporary art,’ says Takahashi Mizuki, Co-Director of CHAT and curator of Gathering Delights.
The Inaugural Season exhibition Welcome to the Spinning Factory! will be showing together with Gathering Delights during this exhibition period.
Exhibition Details
Date: 28 July – 3 November 2019 (Closed on Tuesdays)
Opening hours: 11:00am – 7:00pm
Venue: CHAT and The Hall, The Mills