The Apartment Curatorial 《住屋策展計劃》: Poonam Jain's solo exhibit 印度藝術家 Poonam Jain 個展

《住屋策展計劃》｜ “The Apartment Curatorial”

印度藝術家 Poonam Jain 個展｜ Poonam Jain's solo exhibition

印度藝術家Poonam Jain 今年在孟買的獨立藝術空間Clark House舉辦了她的第一個個展。當中，她探討到在大都會生活面對的空間問題，包括物理上以及情感上缺乏空間的問題。孟買和香港都是大都會城市，也同樣有許多英國殖民統治者留下來的街名、城市規劃、交通網絡、崇尚商業活動的人口結構，以致於驚人的高樓價地產市場。C&G經營的藝術空間位於太子的一所唐樓。與孟買的許多樓宇一樣，這唐樓已從純粹的住宅演變成被用作各商業用途。Clark House位於孟買Colaba 區域，此區域從前也是住宅區，在二戰時，更是英人用作軍事辦公室的地方。縱使這區的樓房設計，均是供居住為主，此地帶的樓宇現在也多是作商業用途。

Poonam Jain到孟買生活時，她住的地方極細，與歐洲人的標準相比，例如巴黎，乃「不是人住」的，但這類只有幾十平方尺的居住空間，卻確確實實存在於孟買及香港，這種生活環境上的困窘比實際低收入的貧窮更可悲。在孟買，也有發展商、地主願意贊助藝術活動、提供空間，但他們的投機炒賣活動，對我們藝術圈有甚麼幫助？

Poonam Jain之前在Clark House舉行的個展，利用了Clark House的多層多房式的空間，像一頁頁書般呈現作品；而在杜拜的1x1 畫廊的白立方空間也是條理地把作品展示。但在香港的C & G藝術單位，她的個人展覽嘗試重現她「正在」工作室的狀況，透過缺乏空間工作的體驗與場地的限制，促使其利用複雜的素描、書本與小型創作去回應一些奇特的建築空間。建築與空間，往往被視為數學題，Poonam Jain卻希望把建築與空間看成藝術課題，她透過大量寫文字、排列文字去營造一系列不同形狀、看似未來建築的素描。本展覽展示Poonam Jain如何讓住處和工作室等細小私人空間的相互對話，去迴避常掛口邊的高地價、高租金議題，而更濃縮地反映發展經濟以外，在不同城市展覽時所觸碰到的不同可能。

Sumesh Sharma 2014

Clark House Initiative (印度孟買)

This year as Poonam Jain opened her first solo at Clark House the chapters she unfolded on the walls of Clark House her concern became the lack of space in its physical and emotional manifestations that one encounters in a Megapolis such as Bombay and Hong Kong. Apart from sharing names of roads and structures of urban mechanism left behind by the british such as transport networks and a demographic that encourages mercantile activity through diversity, Bombay and Hong Kong is home to the most expensive housing. Clara Cheung and Gum Cheng run an art space within an apartment building which, like Bombay, has been taken over by commercial establishments occupying the once designated apartments. Clark House and many other building in the district of Colaba in Bombay were apartments that were occupied by the British during World War II as offices to be used for the war effort since their use as commercial premises have not ended. But the architectural integrity of these spaces remains that of spaces to be lived in, one of an apartment.

Since coming to Bombay , Jain has occupied spaces that would not be deemed inhabitable according to European urban housing rules. Their sizes often are way below the 9 metres square required for a singular person's habitation in a city such as Paris. But rents and a speculative real estate market allow such rates of real estate in cities such as Hong Kong and Bombay. Where poverty cannot be defined by income levels but by the access to suitable living spaces. Often real estate firms entrepreneurs become patrons to the arts a recurrent phenomenon in Bombay, but their constant market making and speculative activities with real estate often prevent the possibility of any local art ecology in a city like Bombay or Hong Kong.

Poonam Jain thus crams in a solo into C&G artpartment, a debut solo that has seen many walls of Clark House being used as a book and the distance the white cube provides at 1x1 Gallery Dubai. But at C&G she returns to a space that has the dimensions of her studio, where the lack of space allowed her to create intricate drawings and small works, respond to the alienation of architecture through books. Architecture and space is always a mathematical proposition and Jain creates a set of drawings that look as alien futuristic architecture that are in fact lists of numbers that are written tirelessly to form shapes. The show stands in solidarity of efforts by artists to circumvent high rents by turning intimate spaces such as apartments and studios into platforms of dialogue and exhibition making in cities that censor its possibilities by formal economies.

Sumesh Sharma, 2014

Clark House Initiative (Bombay, India)

展覽資料/Exhibition Detail:

展覽： 住屋策展計劃

Exhibition： The Apartment Curatorial

策展人：Sumesh Sharma (印度孟買的Clark House Initiative)

Curator: Sumesh Sharma (Clark House Initiative, Bombay, India)

藝術家/Artist: Poonam Jain (印度孟買/ Bombay, India)

地點：C&G藝術單位 (香港九龍太子西洋菜南街222號3/F)

Venue: C&G Artpartment (3/F, 222 Sai Yeung Choi St South, Prince Edward, KLN, HK)

開幕/Opening: 16/10/2014 (Thur) 8pm

日期/Date: 16/10/2014(Thur)- 17/11/2014 (Mon)