A Solo Exhibition by Sapna Chandu
Opening event: Thursday August 24, 6:30pm – 8:30pm
With a Kwality Chai Performance
Kwality Chai is a playful and subversive exploration of cultural imperialism in a distinctly Australian context. Set in an alternate reality in which Indian culture has taken over Australia, Kwality Chai stages a performance that revolves around the making and serving of tea. This work features an ascendant Indian disapora -who through their “new world” gestures, vernacular and social pastimes reinvent the cultural identity of (what becomes known as) “Post Australia”.
The work showing at Blak Dot references footage from the three week Kwality Chai Live Art intervention, staged at Flinders street Station in September 2014. This current exhibition is comprised of delicious tasting chai, the Kwality Chai cart and performance, video and sound works, a publication, and a Kwality Archive with resources to the alternate reality and development works.
Sapna Chandu is an Australian-Indian artist who works with site-specific installations & has a special interest in cross-cultural stories. “I grew up in Melbourne in a small Indian community and am interested in the effect of mass migration on collective culture – how this creates a new language of communication and social exchange. With this work, my intention is to offer a space for contemplation and participation in a setting where the human spirit embraces change in creative and enterprising ways.”
This would not exist without the generous support of Blak Dot Gallery, The Australia Council for the Arts, City of Melbourne, Creative Australia, The Besen Family Foundation, Creative Partnerships Australia, and Metro for the development and the presentation of the Kwality Chai Live Art work.
Similarly, my gifted creative team that enabled the realisation of the work includes Michael Warnock (artist, Kwality People), Byron Scullin (Sound design Chat Pat Radio), Eugyeene Teh (Set design), Shash Lall (Producer and Drama Director).
Artist Talk: September 2nd, 2-3pm
Chai Making workshop: September 9th, 2-3pm