Sayan Chanda (b. Kolkata) is an artist and textile practitioner from India, currently based in London.
Sayan creates hybrid forms that conjure votive offerings, ritual markings and folk iconography using fibres, clay and articles of personal significance. Employing laboured methods of tapestry weaving, stitching, dyeing, unpicking found textiles and hand-building, he works intuitively giving physical forms to his anxieties, mythologies, and individual and collective memory. The culminating ambiguous forms allow him to escape into a more comfortable myth.
His works often function as totems, portals and talismans, alluding to objects or moments in his past that still hold significance for him. He is particularly interested in how these objects became relatable, to begin with, and transcended their material confines moving into an esoteric realm. Their physicality and purpose which make them sacred yet foreboding, are potent references for him.
Once completed, his works exist as relics; vestiges of working through inner monologues, that sit outside of place, culture and period.
EDUCATION
2020 - 2021 - MA Fine Art - Camberwell College of Art (University of the Arts London), UK
2009 - 2013 - B.DES Textile Design - National Institute of Design, India
EXHIBITIONS
2022 - A Smear and the Crown, Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai
2022 - A Plot Hatched By Two, Warbling, London
2021 - London Grads Now, Saatchi Gallery, London
2021 - Group Show, South London Gallery, London
2021 - Hanging Gardens, Nature Morte, New Delhi
2021 - Common Ground, Copeland Gallery, London
2021 - Unmute, Copeland Gallery, London
2020 - Pause - Method, Mumbai
2020 - Tactile - Deptford Does Art, London
2020 - Textiel Plus - Virtual exhibit, Netherlands
2020 - Surface Gallery - Virtual exhibit, Nottingham
2019 - The India Story - The Art Exhibit, Kolkata
2019 - The 84th London Group Open, Cello Factory, London
RESIDENCY AND AWARDS
2023 - Thread artist’s residency, Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Sinthian, Senegal (forthcoming)
2022 - Radical Residency VII, Unit 1 Gallery | Worshop, London
2022 - The UC Berkeley South Asia Artist Prize- Honourable Mention
2020 - The Jamshetjee Nusserwanjee Tata Endowment Scholarship
2019 - Marshwood Arts Awards - Applied Arts, Bridport Arts Centre, Dorset
FEATURES AND PUBLICATIONS
2022 - Mint Lounge
2022 - Vogue India
2022 - Colour Hive Magazine
2021 - India Today
2021 - Patriot, India
2021 - Book - Yarn, Thread, String, Uppercase Publishing Inc.
2020 - Asian Curator
2020 - Warp and Weft Magazine
2020 - Design India Magazine
2020 - Architects and Interiors India
2019 - Cocoa and Jasmine magazine
2017 - Livemint
2014 - Pool magazine