Indo-American arts council's 7th annual erasing borders 2010:
Exhibition of contemporary Indian art of the Diaspora
Invitation
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Artwork
 
 
Chetan Mangat
 
Chetan Mangat
Email: chetan@chetanmangat.com
 

Artist Statement

Multi channel video installation, 2008

In 1984 the prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguard's which led to violent outbreaks against all people of the Sikh faith in India

This video is the representation of an event that was experienced by the artist during the 1984 riots. It took place in northern India, inside the compounds of his boarding school. He was eight years old at the time.

It was the middle of the night, when the entire boarding house dormitory was woken up by the sounds of violent clashes, people screaming and gun shots. Soon people were trying to figure out what was happening and eventually found out that the rioters were trying to attack the school and the Sikh children inside.

These videos are a recreation of how the artist imagined the event unfolding outside the building, as he was unable to see anything in the darkness of the night. They are fragments of his imagination intertwined with pieces of reality. The landscape is an accurate representation of the schoolyard outside his boarding house. However the people in the video are wearing clean white clothes to symbolize the arrival of death. In India when someone passes away everyone, including the person who has passed away is dressed in white clothing.

That night it was the attackers who died because they let their emotions and frustrations become greater than their sense of awareness, rationality and compassion. Eventually these people pass by the sides of the screen symbolizing their exit from the physical world.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS AND FELLOWSHIPS

2008 Design Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sustainable South Bronx
2007 "Drift", Curated by Eileen Tropy, Rush Arts Gallery, New York
2007 "Artifacts from the future" Curated by Jake Dunnagan, Honolulu, HI, 2007
2007 "Young Investigators Conference", Daejeon, South Korea
2007 Interactive Telecommunications Program, Winter Show,
2007 Interactive Telecommunications Program, Spring Show
2006 "Bushwick Arts Festival", Brooklyn, New York

CURATORIAL PROJECTS

2007 Zing Magazine, Compilation of contemporary music for the magazine's 10th Anniversary.

COMMERCIAL WORK

2007- 2009 Creative Director, Blank & Co., New York, NY
2005 Art Director, Zingmagazine, New York, NY
2004 Art Director, Platform Magazine, New York, NY
2005 Director, Urbanation Television, New York, NY
2003 Producer, Documentary Film, "Bharat Yatra - A journey to India

BIBLIOGRAPHY

2003 Figaro Magazine, Japan, review, Movement art Collective, June, 2003

EDUCATION

2007 MPS, Interactive Telecommunication Program, New York University, New York, NY
2003 Documentary Film Workshop, Rockport, Maine.
1999 BS, Logistics, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA
Minor, Economics, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA
Minor, Film Studies, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA

 
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