Artist in Residency 2020
With Manmeet Kaur
Residency November 2019 – January 2021
We are honoured to welcome and host Manmeet Kaur at SAVVY Contemporary in our first long-term residency.
Born in Kashmir and raised in Punjab, Manmeet Kaur (India's pioneer femcee) creates and performs poetry on rhythms, voicing her hope-full social perception as a stoic explorer of sounds to materialize harmony, challenging the often ignored, self-destructive social aspirations hailing in today's hyper-competitive digital world of materialistic humanmind. Her expertise of practise lies in performing live lyrical improvisations with bands, along with rapping travelogues on swingy hip hop beats. Her audio visual documents so far depict her travel across India and through the European continent, landing into her second and latest album NEOPHILIA.
Both her professional and personal journeys have taken unconventional yet natural re-forms, as this year, she enhances her horizon by entering music production and through collaborations with artists and thinkers based in Europe and the global south. Through her period of stay, she will actively be engaging in SAVVY Contemporary's ongoing projects and churn her research into a self produced album by the end of this residency.
Through her songs, Manmeet provokes a reminder of the stranded noble customs, seeking a simpler lifestyle in this modern age of rigorous industrialization.
For example, in C.I.T.O.P.I.R.:
A mere witness to euro-centric breed
of uneconomic greed
from unlimited frites to canned meat.
But for means we can reach
'Lets go local'
Funding Manmeet's residency is generously supported by the Martin-Roth-Initiative.
Photos Manmeet's portraits were taken by Bona Bell.