Madi Acharya-Baskerville | Work in Common
Work in Common is an annual short residency series that encourages artists to experiment with different ways of working – either testing out a speculative idea or developing new collaborations. New Art Exchange Open 2023 prize winner Madi Acharya-Baskerville had undertaken a 4-week residency during August 2024.
Artist Madi Acharya-Baskerville works predominantly with pre-existing materials which have been discarded. She has become increasing concerned by the effect of obsolete matter in our environment. For her Work in Common residency, Madi worked with local waste, particularly packaging. Their work at Primary was situated in Nottingham’s ecology and its legacy around lace. During their first week, Madi visited Sherwood Forest, museum collections of lace, which inspired and informed the materials and the techniques they used.
During her residency Madi ran a public workshop, Creating mixed media sculptures inspired by nature which explored how everyday packaging can be repurposed to create floral and leaf like forms working closely with Primary’s garden activity. They also joined Raghavi Chinnadurai, Associate Curator, for an enactment of a conversation/performance, discussing their practice and themes of anthropomorphism as a decolonial methodology.
Video by Jules Lister, Courtesy of Madi Acharya-Baskerville, Work in Common residency, Primary ( 2024)
Madi Acharya-Baskerville is a London based South Asian artist. She graduated with an MA in Fine Art at University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. She has exhibited widely within the UK and abroad. Her work is part of the permanent collection at the Whitworth, Manchester and was on display in ‘Exchanges: Recent Additions to the Collection’ (2021-2022).
She has been awarded DYCP Grant from Arts Council England (2021-22) for developing her practice in the context of museum collections. She has been selected for the 20/20 residency commission, supported by University of the Arts London, Decolonizing Institute (2022) and has been artist in residence at The Lightbox, Woking as part of this. Her solo exhibition ‘I Dream a Palace’ at the Lightbox, (2024) showcases works created during the 20/20 residency.
She has won the First Plinth Award, Royal Society of Sculptors (2023). She has recently completed her first Public Art Commission and has sculpture ‘The Double Act’ has been on display at the Royal Society of Sculptors and is currently on show at The Art House, Wakefield. As part of the Public Art Award she also had a recent solo exhibition at the Royal Society of Sculptors. She has received The Primary Residency Prize following selection for New Art Exchange Open (2023). Her work also featured in ‘Fragments of Our Time’, Whitaker Museum as part of British Textile Biennial and ‘Stuff of Life/ Life of Stuff’ Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich (2023).
Madi Acharya-Baskerville | Work In Common is part of TRANSFORM, a City Takeover taking place across cultural organisations between May and September 2024.
