(left to right in the compilation image): Iwan Parry, Chris Orr, Molly Thomson, Richard Cox, Chris Lloyd, Sue Hunt, Annie Giles Hobbs, Tom Piper, Dale Devereux Barker, Kavita Nayar, Samit Das, Vinnay Sharma, Veer Munshi, Trupti Patel, Ashok Ahuja, Manish Modi

Nine artists from Britain and nine artists from India, all with widely varied backgrounds and experience, collaborated on this digital research project based at the Cardiff School of Art and Design, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. PROOF (V-6), the printmaking research group, initiated the project during the spring of 2004. The first phase of the project was a series of organization and planning meetings with our Indian partners, Sushma Bahl (formerly Head of Arts and Culture for the British Council, India) and Sunaina Anand (Curator of Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi).

Some of the participating artists were working in digital medial. Others had little or no experience with computer-based art, but they were interested in exploring the artistic potential of digital media.

For the Indian artists, the process of exchange and development of the work is as important as the resulting g exhibition of their original collages and high-quality digital prints, which they have specially crated for this project. The project’s networking, sharing of artistic concerns, and exchange of ideas and images are important opportunities, which the participating artists value greatly.

The “collage original” was considered to be the most creative and efficient way to begin the digital portfolio project. The 18 artists were asked to create collages about “identity” using traditional materials. Then the originals were scanned and proofed via high-quality inkjet machinery in the printmaking studios in ‘Cardiff. Each work is actual size printed on special coated fine-art paper using archival inks. The digital prints in this portfolio were numbered in small editions (no more than 20 of each), plus the artists’ proofs.