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Max Mueller Bhavan | India Kolkata

Assessing

By Chandrakant Ganacharya

Money or cash, the most worldly and man-made object, is often used to attain closeness to divinity or to seek solace; thanks to all religions and those donation boxes, Dan paatras or alm urns at places of prayer and worship. The act of giving has seldom transcended the notion of currency. Indeed, donations have often been an instrument of self-deception. Call it alms, gifts, donations or grants, they create an apparant image of selflessness, in spite of the donors thinking in terms of value-added benefits from what is given away. 

Assessing is a performance, which is a socially engaged act, about transcending the notion of currency and going beyond the idea of value. The audience is invited to participate in an interactive performance, which promises a reward that may not be what is expected.

Artist Chandrakant Ganacharya, was born in 1967 in Narayanpet, Hyderabad, Telangana. He has a degree in Applied Art from Kareer College, Mumbai (1990), G&A from Xavier Institute of Communications (XIC) Mumbai (1993), and a PG Diploma in Aesthetics from Mumbai University (2009). The concerns in Chandrakant’s work may look common as they reach us. But once we ponder over them, they are not common.

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