Following an open call for applications in Autumn 2022, Sayan Chanda was awarded an 8-week funded residency. Cove Park’s programme of funded residencies support research, the development of existing and new projects, collaboration, interdisciplinary practice, and the production of new work and ideas. All national and international artists, cultural practitioners, and researchers, working individually and collaboratively in all art forms, in the creative industries, and across disciplines, were eligible to apply. Cove Park’s residencies also support individuals at every stage in their careers.

Sayan Chanda (b. 1989, India) reimagines votive objects, folk narratives and indigenous rituals as hybrid ambiguous forms that function as totems, portals and talismans. Deploying tapestry weaving, stitching, dyeing and hand-building, he works intuitively with fibre and clay giving physical forms to his anxieties, mythologies, and individual and collective memory. His works exist as relics; vestiges of working through inner monologues, that sit outside of place, culture and period. He lives and works in London. Sayan studied Textile Design at the National Institute of Design, India and Fine Art at Camberwell College of Arts (UK)

His work has been shown internationally at Jhaveri Contemporary (2022), South London Gallery (2021); Saatchi Gallery (2021); Nature Morte (2021); Frieze, London (2022); Art Dubai (2023) and Commonage Projects, London (2022). His works are part of an upcoming travelling exhibition with Independent Curators International (New York) alongside the works of Cecilia Vicuña and Ana Mendieta. In September 2023 he will be attending the Thread artist residency run by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Senegal.

At Cove Park, Sayan intends to combine the ceramic and fibre elements of his practice and work on a large-scale tapestry. 

Featured image provided by the aritst: Nirrti 1, 2023, 197 cm x 150 cm, Cotton cord, vintage quilt, Gamchha (traditional towel), dyed cotton; image below provided by the artist: Profile, Sayan Chanda