Ganapathy BP

Ganapathy BP is an artist and currently works as a curator at HCG Foundation. He is interested in the connection to land and the materiality of nature in his artistic practice. A longtime resident of RT Nagar and current resident of Shivanahalli, Ganapathy, through this grant, is engaging with the culture of the Raithara Santhe or farmers market that takes place in this neigbhourhood.

Ganapathy would like to engage with residents of Shivanahalli to explore stories around the Raithara Santhe and build a connection to the area’s food culture through artistic interventions in the neighbourhood. He is interested in the stories of the food and people of the santhe and their journeys. He would like to explore memories of the santhe from earlier times and document the various Gadhes (proverbs), lyrics, poems and ignored stories of food from the farm to our tables. In the process of this project, he will also explore the changing character of the neigbhourhood in response to the expansion of the city. 

Ganapathy will collaborate with researcher Bennet Praveen Doss and Shail Suneja of Synesthesia Collective to document this project and the process. The team will work with different stakeholders of the santhe - shop owners, push-cart vegetable sellers, residents, and customers - to understand their connection to the space. These will be done through detailed interviews that will be documented to identify stories that will then be translated into artwork/s. Ganapathy hopes that the art he creates will connect residents to the santhe and to Shivanahalli.

Ganapathy and team look at this project as a pilot to identifying similar areas with push-cart owners around Bangalore and documenting micro spaces in the city. The outcome of this project will be artwork/s evoking the santhe at a central location in Shivanahalli. The project’s deliverables to IFA will be photo-documentation of the interviews and the process, and the artwork.