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The history of art residencies in India has, by and large, been an oral one. However, this will soon translate into a book, thanks to eight years of research by Saloni Doshi who runs the Space 118 studio. Speaking to this diarist, Doshi says, "I have been running this residency for over 10 years now, and when we started in 2009, Feroza Godrej told me that it reminded her of the Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Institute at Breach Candy. As a collector and later as a patron, I had no idea about what had existed before me." She then started researching these studios—the Sarabhai Foundation, Chennai's Cholamandal Artists' Village and others across the length and breadth of the country.
They were not known as residencies, perhaps, but they created the infrastructure for building confidence among the artists, a place where they could have a dialogue with each other, and without much monetary profit. The book, which is currently being put together by her, and a team of writers, has the working title of Mapping Residencies of India with 46 residencies. It's full of anecdotes and first-person interviews. With the lockdown in place, some of these stories are also being shared online, on the Space 118's Instagram and Facebook handles and its website. Head there for an art history lesson.