Niyeti's story
Niyeti Chadha came to the UK with support from CWIT. During her residency at Gasworks, Niyeti conducted research into the architectural history of London in relation to the process of ecdysis, the shedding of skin by reptiles and insects, whereby a city can be seen as an organism that sheds and abandons forms as it grows.
Her drawings, collages and sculptures document a constantly transforming urban landscape, in which spaces are dissected into formal elements that are reorganized and recombined in an attempt to discover new and imagined narratives within the built environment. The works act as a process of mapping spatial experiences from memory and feeling, to find points of departure within the cityscape through a process of intuition.
Niyeti was selected to undertake a residency at Gasworks from 1 July to 16 September 2019. During her time in London, Niyeti became very close with Gasworks’ other resident artists, Ana Mazzei from Brazil, Andres Bedoya from Bolivia, and Mulenga Jestina Mulenga from Zambia. Through a tailored series of events, talks and private meetings, she also met regularly with the staff and London-based studio artists at Gasworks and other arts professionals, enabling her to establish a network of contacts in London and further afield.
In addition to these professional encounters with curators and collectors, Niyeti received numerous visits from art colleges, curating students and educational organisations including the Curating Contemporary Art programme at the Royal College of Art; the Fine Art Study Abroad programme at Central Saint Martins; the Global Art Practice programme jointly organised by Tokyo University of the Arts and Central Saint Martins; as well as a studio visit a Saudi delegation including emerging curators and art managers from Saudi Arabia. Gasworks also organised a dinner with staff and resident artists at Delfina Foundation, and Niyeti took part in Gasworks’ Patrons Open Studios breakfast event in September 2019. During this event, a select group of UK-based and international residency supporters, collectors and philanthropists were invited for breakfast with the artists and a private viewing of their studios in the week before the public Open Studios day. In addition, Niyeti and the rest of our international artists-in-residence attended a VIP dinner for Latin American art collectors and Gasworks’ supporters, hosted by London-based art collector Heloisa Genish at her house.
Towards the end of her residency, on 7 September 2019, Niyeti participated in the Autumn Open Studios at Gasworks. Throughout the day, she and our other resident artists opened their studios to the public and were present to discuss their practice and engage with visitors. The event also included an afternoon Artists’ Talk, offering them the opportunity to publicly discuss the research and work they developed during their residencies and introduce their wider practices to local art professionals and audiences. At the Open Studios, Niyeti presented a series of wall-based works which extended out into horizontal and vertical space, using paper, card, wood and tape to represent abstracted architectural forms in three dimensional space. She also presented a series of photographic collages, using imagery she had accumulated during the residency of the built environment around Gasworks.
The Open Studios were promoted on Gasworks’ Facebook (14K fans), Twitter (68K followers) and Instagram (19K followers) feeds and we received over 50 visitors on the day.
“We look forward to continuing our collaborations with the Charles Wallace India Trust in the future as it provides unique professional development opportunities for talented Indian artists and gives Gasworks the chance to introduce them and their work to the UK art scene.”