Thursday, September 5, 2013

bye bye bangalore

I left Bangalore for Nashville on July 12th. Returning to America was more surreal than I ever could've imagined. I'd lived abroad twice before (in Ireland and Australia) but never really experienced reverse culture shock before. America seemed suddenly like a foreign country to me, everything looked different, unrecognizable in surprising ways and I was aware of everything in a way I'd never been before. I'm still readjusting and I've been back for almost two months. It's been a surprising and fascinating process.

Which is why its been so long for me to do this last and final entry for my blog. So here goes:

My last few days in Bangalore were wonderful. In order to maximize my days I slept very little, and did and saw as much as I could. A few visits to the city market, the junk market, a new market in a whole new part of town, seeing friends, buying gifts, going away parties and participating in the TAKE on Art Magazine's all day symposium on Art Residencies. Which was a fascinating and wonderful experience to be a part of such incredible and exciting members of the Indian art community. I am so grateful to have been asked to be a part and to spend my last day in India to finish off an incredible, life changing 9 month period of time.

Words seem to fail me when I try to say how thankful I am for the Fulbright's support of my work and my project. These months have been the most important thus far of my career and I hope that the work I made there reflects that. I hope to continue to further my research that I began in India and I have already been so glad to be able to utilize the internet as a way of maintaining the relationships I formed there to this day. I hope to someday bring Indian artists to the United States in any capacity I can and to further the project of Senator Fulbright of promoting mutual understanding between cultures. I continue to think of the words of Senator Fulbright when he said, "Our future is not in the stars but in our own minds and hearts. Creative leadership and liberal education, which in fact go together, are the first requirements for a hopeful future for humankind." I am so grateful to Fulbright and USIEF and their support.

I am also so grateful to everyone I met in Bangalore, especially Suresh Jayaram, Cop Shiva, Umesh Kumar, Clare Arni, Babitha Lingraj, Hanna Holman, Niranjam Hosmane, Suki Dhanda, Aren Skalman, Kathryn Meyers, Anna Schurmann, Sanjeev Narrain and 1 Shanthi Road for hosting me as an artist in residence. This experience was also undeniably formative and an essential component to the success of my time in India. The friends I made there I am also so grateful for and hope to see them all stateside too someday soon as my guests here. I also am comforted to know I will see them again soon, the next time I am in Bangalore, which I hope to be sooner rather than later.

One last thing: this blog will remain alive and a way for me to post reviews or events surrounding my work from India. Since I've been back I was so excited that the Hindu wrote about my project in this awesome article!!! and the Nashville scene wrote about me here!

Until we meet again, India.

Movie Poster, Bangalore

Clouds Over Chicago