Praveen Maripelly

My MFA research aim is to use various artistic methods to creatively approach every aspect of life to bring about positive social change. My project seeks to blur lines between gender and caste issues, address institutional racism and colourism, and build social interactions and relations between people in rural areas and the greater global community through ethical components of generosity, hospitality, connections, and social aesthetic ‘conversation’.
   
   I have undertaken multiple social art projects during my MFA program to investigate social engagement through various creative methods. PrayogIllu: A Social Sculpture is my ancestral house in Vellulla village, Telangana state, India and it is artistically re-conceptualized as a site-specific, interdisciplinary, and alternate place for experimentation in rural-global connection, as well as community building. It aims to blur and reconfigure both social engagement in the rural world, and rural-global cultures. Remote Prayogillu is a temporary place set up in different locations around the world, utilizing museums, galleries, community centers, historical buildings, public places, or abandoned places to connect virtually with the physical Prayogillu in Vellulla, Telangana, India. The vision for the future of PrayogIllu is a network of remote, representational, movable spaces in different locations around the world offering a window-like experience into and out of the actual PrayogIllu in India. This network will facilitate exchanges between disparate local cultures to build a culturally diverse and socially engaged, worldwide PrayogIllu community.
   
   Another social art project I have developed is Chai Stories, the main aim of which is to provide a space to build public space and community while investigating the meaning of social engagement, community, and outside life in the context of other cultures. The Chai stories project is a place where people come together and create dialogue while having Chai.
   
   My Yog4Humanity.Art project is a community-based project with an amalgamation of arts and yoga at its core. The initiative’s aim is to reconnect communities that are socially or otherwise distanced. The project reflects care, empathy, and compassion for such isolated communities by attempting to blur boundaries between communities that are isolated/ignored and non-isolated, engaged in various activities like local games Kho-Kho, food sharing, and artmaking etc.,
   
   A Moving Vehicle series is an old-school outreach method used to reach a community to share artistic ideas through video, audio in the local language, and documentation. This method is very effective at enabling random and spontaneous human interactions. In the digital era, social relations are gradually mitigated by electronic gadgets. A Moving Vehicle series is a way to bring people together to create conversations between them to build a positive social environment. This project also explores the use of local languages to connect with a community.
   
   My MFA research also encourages women/girls to maximum participation in rural places, rural and global community building, re-activating/re-evaluating spaces for community benefits, redefining authorship, blurring lines between art and non-art places, active participation, and enabling random social interactions. Therefore, inclusion, equity, social justice, and diversity are components of my social art projects to engage the community to bring a positive social change regardless of gender, caste, race, color, and ethnicity.