A collaborative space
: gatherings :
: in-progress :
: simultaneously :
: at-the-onset-of :
: coming-together :
first draft — a collaborative practice that began in 2018 as a space for coming together and conversing, was initiated by a group of artist-friends through a series of pop-up shows as [first] drafts. The process behind ‘drafts’ becomes essential in creating a playful space to invite a flux of dialogues, mistakes, accidents, revisions, incidents, receptivity, and so forth. In response to the pandemic years, the pop-up shows evolved into gatherings called first draft·ings, where we meet in small groups at terrace/6464 and other residential/non-commercial spaces in New Delhi (India) and beyond. The gatherings have provided a space for people from all fields and backgrounds to connect and converse. first draft·ings offer an offline space to come together, share, eat, drink, chat, play, rest, and recuperate without the compulsion to create or produce something; it manifests through a pre-decided collective prompt to lubricate the conversations and the spatial energies.
There have been three pop-up shows in Delhi NCR and sixteen gatherings at various locations in India and outside. The gatherings include collaborations with the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), Asia Art Archive in India (AAA), Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, -out-of-line- collaborative, and Watermans Art Centre (London), and have been articulated by the group at Performance Research journal by Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis. The members include Akshay Sethi, Anarya, Priyesh Gothwal, Priyank Gothwal, Sonam Chaturvedi, practising artists and educators based in Delhi.
: What does it mean to display works-in-progress, and moreover its intentionality, since a work can never reach completion? first draft explores and delves on this shifting intentionality.
: We started in February, 2018 with the first iteration at NIV Art Centre, Delhi, with a group of five artists- Tatjana Henderieckx, Charlot Van Geert, Priyesh Gothwal, Priyank Gothwal and Sonam. Each displaying their preliminary ideas, like rough sketches that they planned to work on further (/not). This exercise served as a ground to play and explore the effects and potential an idea holds when it’s materialised, derived from the conversations with peers and the audience.
: The second iteration also took place before the pandemic, in July, 2019, at terrace/6464 in Vasantkunj, Delhi, with works by Sonam, Priyank Gothwal, Priyesh Gothwal, Divya Singh, Suvani Suri and Neeraj Patel.
: The third pop-up in 2023 was by Akshay Sethi, Anarya, Sumedha, Priyesh Gothwal, Priyank Gothwal and Sonam, at terrace/6464 in Delhi.
Some images from the second pop-up show:
In the ongoing interventions as first draft·ings, a pre-decided prompt is given to the participants that becomes a lubricant to carry the conversations and build shared energies and intimacies, like bring an object, page, sound/video clip, anecdotes/references on ‘walking’, ‘time-difference’, ‘callscapes’, ‘city as space’, ‘relation to the night-sky’, ‘immobility’, ‘gift-economy’ and others.
The conversations could sprout into more connections and extensions, whereby we don’t necessarily create, yet being open to any residual form that is left behind and/or taken forward- as collaborations, artworks, writings, whatsapp groups, recipes, plants, a walk, and so forth.
