Our journey to India will start on March 1st, afer having a great Kick Off Party and Goodbye Dinner with many friends and collegues in the Stroomhuis in Eindhoven.

This preview is partly a review. sometimes we make major updates of what have happened so far. the rest is preview.

0. kilometer ranking and slide show overview.
Click here to see some impressions

1. program with Baylor Black Sea Foundation.
3 days program with children and students in Constanta, Rumenia.
This program is focussed on awareness of HIV in Rumenia.
Final presentation in the local Constantsa Museum.

election fun:
3 presentations
260 visitors, 250 votes
memorable paintings:

2. program with Hafriyat Gallery in Istanbul and Anadolu Kultur Merkezi in Kars.
4 days program in the Hafriyat Gallery in Istanbul, 3 days in Kars, completed with street presentations and media coverage.

election fun Istanbul:
5 days presentation
240 visitors, 34 votes
memorable paintings:

election fun Kars:
3 presentations
400 visitors, 247 votes
memorable paintings:

3. program with NAA, the national state academy in Tbilisi.
3 day program to introduce the 1700 students to the power of concept, and the content of our concept:hope.

election fun:
3 days presentation
725 visitors, 247 votes
memorable paintings:

4. program In Azarbeidjan
personal presentation to Adil Rustamov, professor and laureate of Baku. There has not been any official program in azerbeidjan due to the extreme bureaucratic system of this county that could be a new paradise, using their oilmoney, but in fact is a new pain in the ass country because the leaders steal and the people do not want to stay behind with nothing, and also start stealing.

5. Program The House of Artists in Iran
On invitation of Mr. Massoud Shojia Tabatabai, director of the House of Cartoons in Iran we had a two days program in Teheran and a spontanious exhibition in the city of Yazd.

election fun:
2 days presentation in Teheran
425 visitors, 347 votes
memorable paintings:

1 day presentation in Yazd
125 visitors, 99 votes
memorable paintings:

6. Program with Vaishwik Gallery
7 weeks progam in cooperation with the Vaishwik Gallery in Pune, India.
This program will take us to 7 major Indian cities where we will present at galleries and in cooperation with local artists we will prsent to schoolchildren and spontanious on the street.

Amristar, Punjab
election fun:
1 day presentation at S.G. Thakar Singh Art Center
125 visitors, 51 votes
memorable paintings:

Chandigarh, State Territory
election fun:
3 days presentation at Lalit Kala Akademi
100 visitors, 64 votes
memorable paintings:

Dehli, Capitol
exhibitions at Lakayat Gallery, Hauz Khas; Press club of India and The Fine Arts And litrature Academy.
only votings at Lokayat Gallery:

Agra, Uttar Pradesh
Exhibition at Hotel Lauries for the Dragonman crew and audience: not your kind of exhibition. 34 paintings in vote.
election fun:

Bal Ashram, Virat Nagar, Jaipur
Eelection fun with 100 kids and 10 people staff:

Ahmedabad, Gujarat
No elections fun due to the fact we have no more voting ballots. Here the some paintings used by the children activities.

Nashik, Maharashtra
Election on emotional base.

Upcomming:

Puna

Bangalore, Karnataka
2 days of exhibition at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
190 visitors, 116 votes, 45 paintings in vote

Goa
2 days presentation at the Kelkar Art Complex
slack season, few visitors, great party
46 paintings in vote and 29 votes

Mumbai (t.b.c.)

6. Program in the Middle East
Exhibitions in Dubai, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

7. Program in Istanbul
second view

8. Program in Balkan
special presentations in Belgrade, Prishtina, Sarajevo, Zagreb and Ljubljana.

Overview

Dhananjay Goverdhane

Dilip Mali

Asha Sharma

Jayant Joshi

Pandurang Pawar

Pandurang Pawar

Dhananjay Goverdhane

Dilip Mali

Get our next update: Getting India all the way

New selection: The World in India

Our next update : getting India in our vains

Our biggest stop in India is Pune. Here we meet the location of our partner, the Vaishwik Art Environment of Bhaskar Hande. There is a complete month exhibition. Although we will go out to other cities (Bangaluru, Goa, Kolhapur) the main part of the exhibition will remain here. Also side shows will take plce at several schools. There is another element that is fascinating at this location: this is the location where most of the new paintings of the new selection will be collected.

Pune is a smaller city. Only 4 million people.... It is one of the IT centers of India and there is a large amount of educational institutes. Also the world famous Rikshaw, the vehicle that we have seen in large quantities everywhere in India (runs like a mopet and packed as a truck) is made here.

Vaishwik is one of the first private galleries of Pune. Besides that it is not a typical gallery for selling art, but functions as a meetingpoint. It is specialized in internatinal art meetings and through these activities they have essembled quit a large and consistent audience. It is located in Aundh, which is in the north-west of the city. When it started, 15 years ago, it was located outside of town. Now you need to travel to get out of town. However, since it is not located in the center of town, only those interested in internatioanl art know the place.
It must be said that, since we are presenting at inside locations, we have lesser crowd then usual. In Netherlands, Germany or Hungary, among other places, we have presented in the open air, at popular festivals, having hundreds of visitors per day. Now we present inside, partly due to the weather because it is really too hot outside, and therefor a smaller audience was expected.

We have, besides the exhibition in Vaishwik, also presentations at schools and schools come over to visit Vaishwik. We are quite happy with this result, keeping in mind it is school holidays.
At the opening show there have been almost 100 people, of which our special guest Jake. Jake went from Ireland to India on a bycicle. We met him in Pakistan, where he was stopped by the police because he was not allowed to cycle there. We took him one day. We had a nice time and he looked like he wanted to come with us all the way. So we dropped him before he could change him mind and ask us. A cycler should finish his path. And he did. As big coincidence he told us he was on his way to Pune. His mother lives there. So we met again and also his mother, who is working for hunaitarian organizations and education, appeared and invited many guests.
In the days after people show up as well, but for me, as performing artist, I like it much more when there is a crowd.

A great catalogue is made. Although it is a bit between a catalogue you can get upfront and a report you can get at the end, it is a very nice book with an overview of many stories and participants. With an introduction text and future story written by Bhaskar Hande, we now will go and send these to the people we have met so far. A reasonable amount will be taken to Netherlands and they will be distributed to the artists involved.

All together, at the 8 cities we have visited so far, we have have over 2000 people at our exhibitions. There have been published 14 articles besides the general announcements and if we would calculate the quantity of that, we have reached over 3 million people.
But what is it to calculate the quantity. Speaking with the painting of Andrea Colitti in our mind, we are not interested in the quantity of the viewer but in the quality of the viewer. And that is another reason why we think we had a wonderfull journey and excellent presentations so far.

Since we make new selections every year, we thought it would be a good idea to make the 2008 selection in India. More then eight month ago we got an email from an artist from Nashik, who applied for participation. His name is Dhananjay Goverdhane and he was actually the startingpoint of this selection. It must be said, it is not too easy to create new selections on distance. Besides that we have had huge preparations for this journey, so we left a big part of the job to Vaishwik.
But the biggest part of this India selection is worked out in India itself. Panels were made in Pune. Here they use inches and feet and not centimeters. So if the information about the size of the panel goes through 2 or 3 hande it can change easily from 9.8 inch x 13.7 inch into 10x14 inch. The panels are too big. Luckily we have learned to adapt to this kind of matters.

Our partner, Vaishwik Art Environment from Bhaskar Hande has made 80 panels, and distributed dozens. From the start in India we have actively invited artists to participate. In Amritsar 3, in Chandigarh 11, in Delhi 3 and in Agra 2, in Bal Ashram 2, in Ahmedabad we have received already 5 paintings. Another 3 might show up. In Baroda we have specially invited Sachin Karne and he also supported two youngsters to participate. In Nashik we have met Dhananjay. Most of the panels are from Pune. Finally we will also pick up paintings in Bangalore, Goa and Mumbai.
We also have some paintings in our collection that have Indian roots. Bhaskar Hande and also Antonio Puri made a painting in the past.
It is a selection with a wide variety of artists, although we will not pretend we are able to make a complete overview of artists from this subcontinent, within these first three introduction month that we are here.
However. It is a selection with potention, talents, great stories and sincere concerns.
Most probably we will use the near future to invite some artist that can broaden our selection; realistic painters, tribal arts, decorative styles and traditional craftmenship are styles that are not considered ‘modern art’. However…. We like beautiful things. There is no need to stick to the by now old fashioned term of ‘modern art’ since our exhibition, although a contemporary project, is open to any form of human expression with paint on canvas.
We are now preparing an official Show Your Hope catalogue and in fact we hope we can dedicate this to the Bal Asham facility in Radjastan. We keep you posted on this one for sure.
So expect another update after our week in the south and just before we are preparing for shipment to the Middle East.