Filmmaker Aneek Chaudhuri has been selected for an international artist residency at Le Moulin de l’Abondance in France, marking a significant step in his exploration of experimental and interdisciplinary cinema. Alongside this, he has been inducted into The Filmmakers’ Cooperative NYC — also known as The New American Cinema Group — strengthening his position within a global network of avant-garde filmmakers, and opening pathways for his work to circulate across museums, galleries, and cultural institutions.
This dual recognition situates Chaudhuri within an expanding international circuit of artists working at the intersection of film, installation, and environmental practice. While the residency offers a space for creation, the Cooperative provides a historic framework for dissemination, ensuring that his work continues to travel and engage within experimental film cultures.
During the residency, Chaudhuri will develop his ongoing research project, The Silence that Remains. Rather than being conceived as a conventional film, the project is a developmental and experimental inquiry into the possibilities of cinematic language. "Moving away from narrative structures, it focuses on silence, gesture, repetition, duration, and environment as primary elements of expression. Positioned between moving image, installation, and sensory study, it seeks to rethink how meaning can emerge without relying on story or dialogue," said Chaudhuri.
Instead of telling a story, it examines how stillness, rhythm, and atmosphere can evoke emotion. It asks what remains when cinema is stripped down to its bare essentials — when words, plot, and conventional cues are removed, leaving behind only presence, time, and perception.
Chaudhuri’s plan during the residency is to develop this project through a series of experiments rather than a single finished outcome. He will create visual and sonic studies — short fragments, durational observations, and spatial compositions — that test how silence and minimal action can carry meaning. "These explorations may take the form of moving images, sound pieces, or installation formats, and will remain open-ended. The intention is to build a body of research that can later evolve into different presentations, whether as a gallery installation, a multi-channel video work, or a hybrid cinematic experience," said Chaudhuri.
A central aspect of this development lies in his engagement with the residency’s environment. During his stay, Chaudhuri will explore how the surrounding landscape, textures, light, and atmosphere of the Moulin can inform and shape his research. Rather than treating the location as a backdrop, he considers it an active collaborator. The changing quality of light, the tactility of surfaces, the presence of silence, and the subtle rhythms of the natural environment will directly influence the direction of his experiments.
"In practical terms, this means that the work will not be pre-determined but will emerge through interaction with the space. A shift in light might redefine a visual study; an ambient sound might become central to a composition; a prolonged moment of stillness might shape the duration of a piece. This process allows the research to remain responsive and fluid, guided by observation rather than control," said Chaudhuri.
Through this approach, his work contributes to an ongoing dialogue between artistic experimentation, environment, and perception that defines the ethos of the residency. It reflects a way of thinking where art is created in conversation with its surroundings, and where perception itself becomes a subject of inquiry.
This evolving language is also reflected in his recent works, A White Horse’s Neigh, and The Place Once Known as Earth and We, Homo Sapiens. Both projects extend his inquiry into human fragility and the porous boundary between nature and constructed realities. While A White Horse’s Neigh engages with memory, myth, and sonic absence through an abstract visual form, The Place Once Known as Earth and We, Homo Sapiens reflects on ecological decay, patriarchy, and shifting moral landscapes.
Set within an eco-art space in eastern France, the residency encourages artists to engage with landscape, light, and materiality as active collaborators. For Chaudhuri, this context aligns closely with his artistic concerns. “What excites me most is the freedom to experiment,” he shared. “This is not about arriving at a fixed form, but allowing the work to evolve through observation and interaction.”
His induction into The Filmmakers’ Cooperative NYC — an artist-run organisation historically linked to the American avant-garde — marks a parallel milestone. Long known as a crucial distribution platform for experimental cinema, the Cooperative supports works that challenge mainstream language. “Cinema, especially in its experimental form, needs spaces where it can exist beyond commerce — within museums and galleries that allow it to be experienced differently,” he noted.
Over the years, his work has consistently blurred the boundaries between moving image and visual art, engaging with themes of perception, absence, and the intangible. The residency at Le Moulin d’Abondance further amplifies this approach by situating artistic practice within an ecological and communal framework, where process and place become inseparable. Reflecting on such opportunities, Chaudhuri emphasised the importance of artistic mobility. "Encounters with different contexts are vital. I hope there is growing support to enable more artists to access such spaces and contribute to global conversations,” he said.