Global Village - Northeast India

Global Village2012-Northeast India

Project team

Alex White-Mazzarella is the Founding Director and Manager of Artefacting. An artist & urbanist he sparked Artefacting as an initiative in utilizing art, collaboration and positivity as means of building community and engaging the pressing social and cultural issues at the community level. With courage, multiculturalism and global insight in hand, Alex is passionate about bringing diverse audiences together. Through Artefacting he conducts artistic interventions from the inside of a community out to spawn fresh perspective, possibilities and boost social cohesion.

He received his BA in economics at Clark University (2002) and studied Urban Planning & Architecture at Portland State University and Universidad Politecnica de Barcelona. He developed the Central Waterfront Planning and Design Competition as the Program Manager of Designing Hong Kong before moving to New York City to work as an artist - training under Hugo Bastidas, Phillip Sherrod and Larry Poons at the Art Students League. His work is in private collections in the USA, Europe and India and he exhibits regularly in New York City. www.lamazza.com is his personal website.

Through his extensive travels, Arne de Knegt has had the fortune of being part of everyday realities of many of the world’s cultures, societies and religions, shaping his nature as a world citizen. As a photographer and idealist, he sees Artefacting as a way to re-shape the way we think about our world and the many components it exists of. Through human interaction and addressing issues of social nature, his passion lies in looking for a more just society.

His background in Urban Planning and his logistical knowledge - built up through years of freelancing as a stage technician on world tours of large rock-n-roll bands - enables him to analyze local issues at a transparent level combined with logistical engagement in making Artefacting’s public activities possible.
His photographic works have been published and exhibited and are in private collections in over a dozen countries worldwide. Arne has been central to Artefacting’s establishment, figuring in largely to the Dharavi, Detroit, Willets Point and Global Village projects. www.arnedeknegt.com is his personal website.

Parasher Baruah is an FTII Pune graduate in Cinematography and balances his work in Mumbai with work in Northeast India. He has been associated with a number of feature films and documentaries as a Director of Photography and is now beginning to direct films as well. His documentary about the lives of 3 ‘rag pickers’ in Dharavi, titled “Waste”, was screened at the Dokfest in Munich in 2009. He has also shot the highly acclaimed documentary “Supermen of Malegaon”. Presently he is working on mapping the social and political history of Nagaland with a photo-documentary project titled- “A map of human faces”. Under the banner of Bluevanda Films, Parasher, along with several collaborators, is involved in developing original content for short fiction films based in Northeast India.
Besides exploring video art and photography, working on The Dharavi Project on social & developmental communications and film making, Parasher also loves to experiment in the kitchen!

Fabrice Bourgelle Born in London to a French mother and a Goan Father, photojournalist Fabrice Bourgelle, has lived, traveled and worked in various parts of the world, carrying with him a passion for Music, a curiosity for Art, and an affinity with the written word, along with an ever-growing love for Film. It is these elements combined, fuelled by an eclectic upbringing and a background in Anthropology, that are embodied in his Photographic expression. Initially following a love for music, his core work has led to a concrete amount of experience within the industry, providing a variety of artwork and press material for independent Artists, Record Labels and magazines alike. While working in Music, his background and training has led him to accumulate travel photography from a range of countries, and also working as an independent photojournalist focusing most of his work social and cultural issues in and around the Indian sub-continent. This mix of influences and strife to always create something different can be sampled here photographybyfocus.com

As part of the Artefacting Kohima project,Nona Arhe made a short film documentary film, titled ‘Tradition and Transition”. She forayed into Journalism by working with a Delhi based Travel Magazine, which soon led her to initiate her own publication of a travel & culture magazine called “East Wind” from Delhi, which she edited and published for several years. In 2009, she initiated a project called “Street Kitchen” in Delhi, whereby, each weekend hundreds of street children working as sellers of all kinds of products at traffic lights, were fed with a packed nutritional meal.The project was funded by Mastardseed Trust based France. She recently published a coffee table book called “Myanmar Nagas - as it is”, which is a rare photo documentation of real-life images of Myanmar Nagas, one of the most isolated & remote ethnic communities in northern Myanmar bordering India Nona Arhe holds a master degree in Public Administration from Punjab University, Chandigarh and a short-term journalism course from London School of Journalism. In 2008, she received scholarship from International Women Network to attend women Leardership training programme in Prague, Czech Republic. She is also a recipient of National Women Network award, New Delhi. Born in Kohima, Nona Arhe makes Delhi her base and works freelance.

Annalisa Iadicicco is a mixed-media artist working in installations and photography. Born in Italy, Iadicicco moved to New York in 1997 to pursue her creative career and study photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology. After working for several years with major movie and television productions she has returned to her roots to focus on creating art from raw found materials and photography. Iadicicco is currently working on a documentary on immigrant workers and is doing work with indigenous populations in South America. Her work has been included in various group shows in New York and Italy. annalisaiadicicco.com is her personal website.