Fareena Chanda
Fareena Chanda
A two-week long residency at the Banff Centre in Canada, titled the ‘The Art of Stillness’ focused on how embodied arts practices, when rooted in stillness, affect one’s understanding of self. During this residency, I explored the nuanced line of the Islamic arts as a form of meditation. I spent many hours repeating the same motion in different positions to explore the way my body responds and adapts to the form and consequently how it informs my practice further. Through the primacy of my body, these explorations while in their infancy, are the beginnings of a embodied practice rooted in traditional Islamic art forms.
The Art of Stillness Residency. Banff Centre. Banff, Canada. 2016
A collaborative practice session with violist Pemi Paull, this piece is part of a larger process-based artistic investigation that deconstructs the methodologies used to create works of traditional Islamic art; materially and experientially. This session explores the notion of 'a practice' across disciplines - the practice of the nuanced line meets the practice of violist Pemi Paull who simultaneously plays J.S. Bach's Prelude, from the first Cello Suite (performed on viola) BWV 1007.