The Open Data Institute (ODI) has appointed artist Rohini Devasher in a new role as Embedded Artist in Residence. Devasher will work alongside the ODI team to discuss current strands of research, conceptual questions and projects under development with a view to creating a new artwork.
Devasher who is based in Delhi, India will work remotely, carrying out deeper research into a data-related theme that will play to her interests. She will provide her unique perspective and thinking and act as a natural catalyst for creative thinking within the ODI team. The embedding of an artist into the Institute’s work is a key part of the structure of the ODI.
Devasher’s current research brings together her interest in early scientific observational instruments and contemporary observational sciences, specifically astronomy and atmospheric sciences, to study the twin aspects of the Earth’s skies: its celestial constants on one hand and the mutable objects of the atmosphere on the other.
The residency will run from July 2021 to March 2022 online with Devasher taking part in the ODI Summit in November 2021. The residency programme is curated by ODI arts programme Data as Culture Director Hannah Redler Hawes.
Rohini Devasher, Embedded Artist In Residence said: “This residency is an opportunity to work with the fantastic group of people at the ODI who work with data in so many specific yet diverse ways. The horizon is very open at this moment but broadly I hope to be able to think through questions around time, observation, access and opacity when thinking about data and the archive. It is also a chance to explore the data driven as a space of play and speculation.”
Hannah Redler Hawes, Data as Culture Director said: “We were attracted to Rohini Devasher’s work for its poetic beauty and fluid engagement with complexity. Her interest in the processes of science and her practice as an artist and amateur astronomer mean that she brings a unique approach to generating and mining ‘evidence’ in order to gain insights – a way of working which is very close to that of people who work with data, albeit with an artists’ agenda. We look forward to the rich conversations she and the ODI researchers she will have, and to closely observing how these can influence new ideas and outcomes in her art and in the ODI’s work with data.”
The ODI continues to work as an influential partner across business, the public and third sectors, helping to both shape and map the data economy. Its current projects explore everything from the value of data assurance and data sharing to the scope of digital literacy, whilst also providing important insights on data regulation and space for truly open thinking.