Can Serrat Residency

Departing for my first international residency-a one-month residency at Can Serrat art residency in El Bruc, Spain, without any material in hand seemed like a scary idea at first. However, having the intention that I would incorporate whatever material I find from the residency space enabled my work to take a totally new direction.

For the first few days, I wandered around the space with a clear mind and eventually came across some abandoned/leftover artworks of artists, which became the source of inspiration for me. I derived inspiration from the environment as well as theoretical and physical references from artists’ leftover works; as a result, creating a dialogue with the ambiance and the works of the past residents. This resulted in questioning the idea of appropriation, copyright and ownership through my resulting pieces.

For the open studio of my residency I created a series of 30 installations, titled, ‘Chicken here – chicken there’, in which eggs were placed in unexpected, unanticipated places. This interactive piece created a sense of confusion and inquiry about the reason for the unique placement of eggs for the other residents and people who were actively involved in the act of finding and counting the number of eggs and installations all over the space.

Residencies provide an ideal opportunity to explore ideas and mediums. Likewise, through this residency I received a chance to discover various mediums, such as a series of site-specific installations, stop motion videos, interactive audio/video pieces as well as two-dimensional works, which was incredibly fruitful for me.