Ideas travel faster than light is an ongoing collaboration between artists working in India, Spain, the UK and the US.

The project has two parts. In the first part nine artists based in London/Bilbao/LA were invited to submit proposals for new works together with instructions of how to make them and nine artists based in Delhi and Mumbai were invited to produce them according to their interpretation and understanding. The works were exhibited at the NIV Art Centre (Delhi) as a collaboration between the paired artists. The instructions were gathered in a publication accompanied by a text written by Mathew Poole. The second part of the project will swap directions and the artists who wrote the instructions in the first part will now make the work and vice versa. The works will be exhibited in London in 2017 alongside a substantial publication.

The main idea of the project came up as a practical solution to the problem of how to transport works across long distances on a small budget. This became a matrix of ideas and things grew in response to the possibilities offered by that condition and situation. Since ideas have a level of materiality different to objects that occupy a physical space, they can be lighter cheaper and freer to move.

Ideas travel faster than light facilitates the transporting of ideas while extending them and re-contextualizing them in a new context. The process of writing instructions for new works in one place then making them in another, roots their origin in between locations while activating a chain of events that embodies them of a history and a life after, reproducing the mesmerizing relation of intimacy between the maker and its object. This has a strong sociological element since from the moment an artwork is transported from one country to another, mediated and re-interpreted by a different mindset, questions of intention and interpretation come to the surface. It is also an emotional journey. The works become emotional merchandise that instigates an exchange of emotions and languages of expression. Their life is outside any one person’s control. This autonomy of life interests me.