PAIR
(PRAF Artist in Residence)
The 2020 edition of PAIR partners with Cité internationale des arts, Paris and Institut Français to award Prajakta Potnis a three-month-long residency at the eminent institution.
Prajakta's application was selected for the notable impression that her residency proposal made on the jury members, its relevance to Paris, and the tangible benefit that the residency program will have on her artistic and professional career.
Prajakta along with other artists were nominated by a jury comprising Bose Krishnamachari (Artist/Curator), Ranjit Hoskote (Poet, Art Critic, Cultural Theorist and Independent Curator), Rekha Rodwittiya (Artist), Shukla Sawant (Visual Artist and Professor of Visual Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University) and Sindhura DM (Director, Jackfruit Research & Design), from their nominations the artist's proposal was selected by Fanny Rolland (Head of Residency Department, Institut Français) and Bénédicte Alliot (Director General, Cité Internationale des Arts).
Prajakta Potnis’s practice sails through painting, site-specific sculptural installations to public art interventions. She has extensively shown her works since 2001 nationally and internationally.
In the beginning of 2019 her Capsule series collected by the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg were part of the Museum’s iconic show, Now is the time-25 years collection Kunstmusuem Wolfsburg.In 2018 she participated in Facing India: India from a female point of view at the same. She did an extensive project commissioned at The Sharjah Art Foundation as part of a curated show, A Tripoli Agreement curated by Renan Laru-an in collaboration with Air Arabia and The Sharjah Art foundation, Sharjah.
She won the Umrao Singh Shergil Grant for Photography 2016-17.
In early 2017 she was part Towards Mysterious Realities, an exhibition curated by Amy Cheng, TKG foundation and Cube space, Taipei. Her work was included in the O.K video - Indonesia media arts festival curated by Julia Sarisetiati and Renan Laruan. She was a part of India Re- Worlded: Seventy Years of Investigating a Nation, Curated by ArshiyaLokhandwala marking 70 year of independence.
In 2016 she was invited to participate at the 11th Gwangju Biennale,curated by Maria Lind.
At the Queens museum, New York, her work was in a show titled Aftermidnight: Indian Modernism to contemporary India, 1947/1997, curated by ArshiyaLokhandwala (2015). Earlier that year she showed a site-specific wall installation at the KunsthausLangenthal, Langenthal.
In 2014 she was invited to participate in the Kochi -Muziris Biennale curated by JitishKalat, Kochi. That year her work was part of Aesthetic Bind- Cabinet Closet WunderkammeratChemould Art Gallery, Mumbai, curated by GeetaKapur. She participated in Textile Languages at the Thalie Art Foundation, Brussles. At the Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; Clark House Initiative, Mumbai invited her to create a site-specific immersive installation. Same year GirishShahane, included her work in Bright Noise for theChennai Art Festival. As an Artist Dispatch Project, at HanartTz Gallery, Hong Kong her work was part of the exhibition Shamans And Dissent(2013).Her works were part of the travelling exhibition titled Indian Highway IV, Mac Lyon Museum of contemporary art Lyon, France (2011), Indian highway III, the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark (2010) and Indian highway II, the AstrupFearnley Museum, Norway(2010).
Her solo projects include -when the wind blows, Project 88, Mumbai(2016),KitchenDebateatthe Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2014), Time Lapseat The Guild, Mumbai, Local Time at Experimenter, Kolkata (2012), Porous walls, The Guild, Mumbai (2008), Membranes and Margins, at Em gallery, South Korea (2008) and walls in between, at The Guild, Mumbai (2006).
Prajakta has also been featured in significant publications like I’m Not There: New Art from Asia,(2010) Edited by Cecilia Alemani published by The Gwangju Biennale Foundation. In 2009 she was also featured in Younger than Jesus: the artist directoryco-published by the New Museum and Phaidon.
Prajakta lives and works in Mumbai, India.
The Cité internationale des arts is a charitable foundation, which was founded in 1965: today it is the largest artist-in-residence center in the world. Thanks to an ideal location in the centre of Paris and its commitment to put the artist at the heart of the project, the “Cité” is a key player, both on the Parisian and international cultural scenes. Artists of all ages and from every discipline come from the four corners of the globe to its complementary sites in the Marais and Montmartre districts for residencies lasting from two months to a year.
This ambitious project, born out of the desire to bring together artists from all over the world in Paris, grants the “Cité” a unique status, one which encourages exchange, artistic crossovers and creativity in general. It is a place to live and work that is open to dialogue between different cultures and where artists can meet their public and other professionals.