Leela Keshav, 2024. © Leela Keshav. Photo: Hafsa Syed
‘Write Now’ Residency: Leela Keshav
- 29 April – 13 May 2024
Hauser & Wirth Somerset is delighted to welcome Leela Keshav as our new writer-in-residence. She is the first participant in ‘Write Now,’ a new writer’s residency in partnership with ArtReview, which will run alongside our existing program. The program provides time and space for early career writers to develop their craft and ambitions.
Keshav is a writer and spatial practitioner completing a master’s in architecture at the Architectural Association in London, UK. Her artistic practice uses writing in conjunction with other media to speculate on the intersections between ecology, power structures, and modes of resistance. During her time in Somerset, she will develop writing methodologies that engage with art and artists at Hauser & Wirth, the local community, and the wider cultural and ecological landscape.
Keshav is an editor for AArchitecture, the Architectural Association’s biannual publication, working alongside two other students to compile, edit and write themed articles. She has been published in ROOM magazine, AArchitecture, Architectural Review, Unootha x Ward Magazine, Chutney Magazine and American Society of Architectural Illustrators.
In 2023, Keshav was a member of the fifth cohort of New Architecture Writers (NAW), a prestigious year-long program for nine emerging design writers of color. Over the course of the program, she engaged with writers, architects and curators to develop multiple ways of writing about space and visual culture, and participated in a series of tutorials and workshops. The program included a week-long residency at the Venice Biennale, Italy, that culminated in a public event at the Biennale Carnival.
Oudolf Field, Hauser & Wirth Somerset. Photo: Jason Ingram
For the duration of the residency, Keshav will document characters—both human and non-human—inhabiting and passing through Durslade Farm and its surroundings. Incorporating interviews, conversations, overheard words and observations, her writing process will weave together real and imagined voices that entangle past, present and future, complicating the linearity of time. Drawing from assemblage, utopian and feminist theories, she will explore writing that is plural and multiperspectival. By critically engaging with the artists-in-residence, Keshav aims to situate their work—and herself—within the multiplicities of the Hauser & Wirth Somerset’s ecology. Inspired by the work of Firelei Báez, she is interested in a writing practice that weaves anecdote with fact and archive with fabulation.
In addition to learning about the work and process of resident artists, Keshav will be mentored by ArtReview’s editorial team and Hauser & Wirth Somerset’s gallery team, to help shape her research and the outcome of the project. At the end of her residency, her written text will be published on artreview.com. As part of our wider learning program, Keshav will host a public workshop about her residency, as well as exploring her approach to writing and creative practice.