Jorisch Family Artist Residency awarded to Swapnaa Tamhane

Swapnaa Tamhane sees the action of drawing as a process of translation.

“I think about the hand as a translator,” she says.

“The hand is the communicator between what I look at and what goes onto a page. I consider that an act of translation.”

Her artwork plays with the language of drawing to question the cultural role of the translator and the ownership of that language.

“The role of the translator is incredibly difficult. My work is really trying to articulate what that means. It’s between destabilizing what an original is and an articulation of one’s own language as experienced in images.”

Considering the process of how a translator moves from the original text to a translation is key to her practice. It connects her process to a postcolonial perspective that enables her to bring politics, economics, and colonial history into her artwork.

‘An honour to engage directly with such a resource’

As the second recipient of the Jorisch Family Artist Residency, Tamhane proposes to research the graphic (both text and drawing) work of Martha Rosler, Adrian Piper, and Hans Hollein from the Generali Foundation’s collection which is now on permanent loan at the Museum der Moderne in Austria.

“In thinking of conceptual art practices in relation to drawing, the Generali Foundation is one of the leading collections of conceptual art and it would be an absolute honour to engage directly with such a resource,” she says.

The Jorisch Family Artist Residency provides support for one graduate student annually to experience life and learning in Salzburg, Austria. Every year, one selected student completes an artist residency at the Amalie Redlich Tower of the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg.

The Jorisch family launched the residency in 2016 to honour their late father Georges Jorisch, who spent spent much of his life reclaiming artworks stolen by the German Nazis from his childhood home outside of Vienna, Austria in 1938.

Pursuing a better understanding of her art practice

Returning to Europe will give Tamhane a chance to practice her German again. Since completing degrees in Art History (Carleton University) and a Masters in Contemporary Art (Manchester University), she has travelled extensively – moving between India, Germany, the UK and Canada.

She was an Editor at Phaidon Press, London, from 2002-2006, Assistant Curator at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, 2007-2008, guest curator at Städtisches Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach, Germany, 2013-2014, an International Museum Fellow, Kulturstiftung des Bundes. She recently curated an exhibition of contemporary Canadian art at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto.

She decided to return to school in order to pursue a better understanding of her practice.

"As an artist, I want to work with collections, pulling in my research and curatorial background, but I returned to school in order to figure out what my practice is."

‘A naturally multidisciplinary person’

She liked the MFA program at Concordia, and loved Montreal, so decided to begin her graduate degree here last September.

“I am a naturally multidisciplinary person, so it all informs one another. I have been writing and researching about many artists over these last several years, so it’s fascinating for me to read something that I can connect to my own work. I love that.”

As for what artwork she plans to do in Salzburg this summer, she sees many avenues to pursue.

“The result may be a responsive written text, a series of text-drawings, an installation, or lead to future research as related to my thesis work. I don’t want to say anything yet, because I have a few ideas that have come to mind!”

Visit Swapnaa Tamhane's website