Art: Kochi-Muziris Biennale -- The spice of global art

Kochi: The Arabian Sea beyond the biennale locations

“I was imprisoned for eleven years. In my cell, I saw the moonlight but not the moon…  We aspire towards a freedom that will lead us towards creating an art without fetters. This unfettered art will be our moonlight.”

~ Zarganar, artist from Myanmar, 2012

It is early March. We are in Kerala as art aficionados. Pouring sweat, we walk through Jew Town to a background score of waves lashing the rocks. After three days across 3,00,000 sq. ft. of mainly site-specific art by 80-plus artists from 24 countries at the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), due to conclude on March 13, we need time out. 

Mandalay House: Type 'Justice'

Our encounters with art deconstructed, then reconstructed in terms of ideation and execution, have been soul-deep, even searing, at the first Indian biennale’s 14 locations across Kochi, Mattancherry, Ernakulam, and the legendary port of Muziris. At saturation point, mere sculptures and paintings seem almost passé. Instinctively, we freeze – and almost turn away – when we chance upon KMB’s logo metres away from the 16^th century Paradesi Synagogue.

But we emerge from Mandalay Hall in Jew Town electrified by a video loop of Zarganar, Myanmar’s most famous comedian, sharing his life behind bars. Close by, a taped note invites us to type ‘Justice’ on a rickety Corona typewriter. The result on paper reads: ‘O-u-t-r-a-g-e.’ We feel inextricably altered, connected to a global network of art, as protest, as politics.  

The biennale impacted individuals as deeply as the host city of Kochi, with its cosmopolitan, multicultural history as focus. From December 12, 2012, the mega-show redefined disused colonial warehouses and bungalows, never open to the public before, as sites of artistic exploration. Alongside, it celebrated current excavations at Muziris, the ancient port buried by a 14^th century flood. Today, Kochi – declared a Biennale City by its mayor – is no longer a dot on the Spice Route, or the Indian gateway to Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. Galvanized by the KMB’s three lakh footfalls by February 28, the Kerala government has pledged to build 100 galleries in 100 panchayats. Is an art revolution underway?

Bose paints a Tata Nano to raise funds

Post 20-plus curatorial trips abroad and 124 studio visits, KMB’s artistic director/ co-curator Bose Krishnamachari points out, “Biennales democratize art, taking it from the confines of galleries, and mix it with people and places, removing the elitist tag… Recent studies have proved their soft power and economic contributions to the host city.”

The biennale venues throng with designers from Montreal and Chennai, artists from Vadodara and Bengaluru, curators from Mumbai and Kolkata, in addition to anthropologists from New Delhi. In Kochi, even idiappam vendors and fisherfolk refer to the KMB today. A middle-class family with adult children recently took a train to the biennale from south Kerala on the recommendation of their barber. Hotel bookings have soared by 80 per cent. Like us, most entered the biennale as sceptics, but left as converts.

Artist Riyas Komu, co-curator of the biennale, notes, “Anything that happens in Kerala gets discussed, equally by a professor or a barber. So, Kochi is the perfect venue for an Indian biennale.”

Subodh Gupta installation, Aspinwall

However, this artist-led initiative met major obstacles en route, raising troubling questions:  Why does India have an art market infrastructure, but inadequate museums? Why was the government-sponsored Triennale-India, founded in 1968, last held in 2005? 

The Kerala Government’s initial Rs. 5 crore allocation was mired in media mayhem. Local trade unions had to be mollified to unload artwork. Miffed local artists vandalized art, including installations by South African artist Clifford Charles.

But the Kochi Biennale Foundation trustees deftly transformed protest into pride. Through theatre sketches in rural Kerala. Through outreach programmes at schools. Through a campaign with shopkeepers, auto-rickshaw drivers, even pedestrians, each holding a poster in Malayalam: “It’s my Biennale.” Pushed to the wall, the foundation raised the requisite Rs. 13.5 crore through corporate donors, embassies, and the art community. 

The community includes feted Indian artist Subodh Gupta. His boatload of found objects at the 160,000 sq. ft. trading compound of Aspinwall House, reflects socio-economic transformations that mesh into Kochi’s stories. “For the artist, his boat is the universe that floats leisurely upon the waters of destruction to reach the land of regeneration,” writes Gupta on the wall.

Buoyantly afloat, the biennale leaves behind upgraded pan-Indian art-handling and shipping facilities, all shipshape for 2014. And a network of supportive mentor-curators including Sarat Maharaj (South Africa), Thierry Raspail (France), Adriano Pedrosa (Brazil) and Hans Ulrich Obrist (Serpentine Gallery, UK). Chris Dercon, director of the Tate Modern gallery, London, frames the KMB against the globe’s 150-plus similar expositions: “This is probably a biennale which is able to redefine and revaluate the life of biennials in general.” 

Atul Dodiya photo installation, Aspinwall

Was the compliment justified? We felt it was. For Bose and Riyas aligned art and locations impeccably, ensuring about 50 percent pan-Indian representation. For instance, Atul Dodiya’s photo-installation, ‘Celebration in the Laboratory,’ is spread out amidst peeling plaster, chipped tiles and random railways signs. His subjective portrait gallery embraces the who’s who of contemporary Indian art, including M F Husain, K G Subramanyan, and Nilima Sheikh, shoulder-to-shoulder with critics, curators and gallerists.  

Outdoors at Aspinwall, swaying palms smile as giggling, pigtailed schoolgirls in blue tunics clamber up gunny-bags to peer into Srinivasa Prasad’s outsize, suspended  ‘cocoon’ of thorny bamboo, binding wire and steel cable. As they whisper in wonder, demystified art becomes a desirable experience. For, to Prasad, Kochi was “the perfect template to create beautiful artwork.”

Carlos Garaicoa's tapestries, Durbar Hall

A ferry ride away, we gawk at Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa’s tapestries at the renovated century-old Durban Hall, his videos melding the weaves with revolutionary squares in his faraway land. Within the black drapes at Rose Street Bungalow, we watch Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s documentaries of dissent.

Seated on the wooden floor at Moidu’s Heritage Plaza, a former coir godown, we tune in to Australian artist Angelica Mesiti’s ‘Citizen’s Band,’ a four-channel video installation of extraordinary adaptations of traditional music to new environments. Such as Cameroon-born Lois Geraldine Zongo’s akutuk or water percussion in a Paris swimming pool. Or Mongolian Bukhu Ganburged playing his morin khur or horsehead fiddle while throat-singing in downtown Sydney. Over 21 minutes, geographies collapse. Transiting cultures sans visas, we are in tears.  

Mesiti with the water drummer on video, Moidu's

KMB’s spice-inspired olfactory work reaches its acme with Brazilian Ernesto Neto’s udder-like cotton installation at Moidu’s, overlooking the Arabian Sea. We can smell, touch and almost see aromatic turmeric, cumin and cloves through the yoking of the global and the local as he perfects the genius of simplicity. 

Ernesto Neto's spice installation, Moidu's

At Dutch-style Pepper House, Nairobi-born, Amsterdam-based Ibrahim Quraishi salutes the 1960s Fluxus anti-commerce movement with his installation of white ‘Islamic Violins.’  Crafted in Pakistan, perfected in the Netherlands, they are accompanied by video in Kochi.   

How does one gauge the impact of this Kochi Biennale? Perhaps by this story doing the rounds in Kerala. Of two children overheard at dusk at Edapally. One says to the other, ‘Let’s play now. I am Bose. You are Riyas Komu…”

As for Bose and Riyas, they are already immersed in a grand dream of a Rs. 72 crore edition in 2014. At Aspinwall, Bose frenetically paints a donated Tato Nano in his unmistakable style, to be auctioned at a fund-raiser. Coming up? Perhaps a commissioned borderless curator in tune with the cultural sensitivity of Kochi, which still hosts 13 communities. Perhaps 15 public sculptures on the road from the airport to Fort Kochi.

Post-biennale, the world views Kochi both as a historical mother-lode and a site of infinite possibilities. If, like Zarganar’s moonlit art, this mega-show does not define India as a global contemporary art port of call, nothing ever will. 

Ibrahim Quraishi's 'Islamic Violins', Pepper House

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My article was originally published in The Hindu Business Line on March 8, 2013:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/weekend-life/kochi-creative/article4482163.ece/

 

Hobbies: Post a pick-me-up!

         

      Writing is a solitary vocation. Each day, I steel myself to sit still, to fill an unforgiving computer screen with words, characters and plots. My mobile is silent; my Internet is off. Sans deadlines or the buzz of a workplace, the experience can be soul-sapping. Or deeply energising — whenever the words pan out right.

       Stillness fuels my wanderlust. My mind migrates to faraway Bratislava or dinner with Inuits. Devouring dal-roti on my futon, I imagine lime-cured Peruvian ceviche on my tongue.

      In the 21st century, amidst nuclear families, single parents and growing isolation, we depend increasingly on sms, email and social networks for communication. Few inter-personal alternatives loomed until I chanced upon Postcrossing (www.postcrossing.com) in July 2012, catching me off-guard. I wondered: Who writes letters in our wired age? 

      I found out since that over 384,347 Postcrossers from 217 countries do (all data pegged to February 14, 2013). The site tagline reads: ‘A postcards exchange project that invites everyone to send and receive postcards from random places in the world. For free!’ Post offices across the globe, verging on closure, took note. Especially when the project’s exchanges touched one million registered postcards in April 2008, then soared from 10 million postcards in January 2012 to (believe it or not) 15 million by December 31.

      Listed by The Washington Times in January 2013 among 11 ‘unusual and bizarre hobbies’, alongside guerrilla gardening, robot-building, and competitive dog grooming, how did Postcrossing begin? A nomadic geek of Portuguese origin, Paulo Magalhaes, 30, set it up in July 2005 while at university. Manned by volunteers, the project currently generates an average of 10 received postcards globally every minute. 

Paulo and his partner Ana pore over postcards

      Berlin-based Magalhaes responds over email about its impetus: “Email is a fantastic communication tool. I use it every day. However, email and social networks have become omnipresent. They are no longer special, but rather banal. They carry short-lived messages that are almost always quickly discarded.”

     The Postcrossing founder-manager stresses, “However, a postcard is very different. The sender handwrites a message specifically for you. Writes your address, stamps it, and posts it at their local post-office. Then it travels several hands, possibly over country borders until it reaches your mailbox, probably hand-delivered by your local postman. Receiving mail brightens the lives of thousands of people every day… Postcards are meaningful and tangible. In a day and age where digital ways of communicating are become more cold and distant, it is even more special to receive something you can put on your fridge door or take with you to work.”

     India’s 1,676 Postcrossers could not agree more. ‘Penpalkamran’ from Kalyan-Dombivili (Maharashtra) leads the desi pack with 2,195 sent cards. He was unavailable for comment. Pune-based Mukund Chiplunkar, 59, a chemical engineering consultant, is a close second. His 1,900-plus cards have traversed over 13 million km.

     He first heard of Postcrossing on BBC’s Click Online in 2006. Chiplunkar, an active participant on Facebook’s Postcrossing India page, shares his experiences at member-meets in Pune — as do other Postcrossers in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Over postcards and coffee at the GPO or a café, members discuss life stories, first day covers, and geocaching, while they pen cards to pan-India fellow enthusiasts.

     How has Postcrossing impacted Chiplunkar? On email, he writes, “Most Indian Postcrossers practise this hobby alone, but with passion, within their immediate family. However, they don’t feel lonely. For Postcrossers, every day is a new story and every postcard is a new opportunity. It is up to him/ her to make the most of it. This keeps the Postcrosser going through mundane activities with eternal hope.”

     Personally, the first Postcrossing card I sent out arrived at the door of Willi in Germany in 11 days. He turned out to be the highest-ranked Postcrosser ever (10,012 sent cards over six years). My first incoming card, from Dresden, carried American poet James Baldwin’s philosophical lines, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Bingo! I am a Baldwin fan.

     Every Postcrossing encounter has changed me since July 2012. I now swap directly with an Italian retiree in Turin, the recipient of the 15-millionth postcard. He is a vital cog in my circle of communication, which currently embraces Portuguese and Chinese schoolgirls, an aspiring Russian writer, a Spanish nurse, even a Dutch grandmother. 

An Inge Look 'Granny' postcard

     As an art aficionado, I have celebrated aboriginal Dreamtime drawings from Australia and Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’ from France. But my major discovery was already a Postcrossing cult — the irresistible Granny postcards by Inge Look, the Finnish gardener-turned-artist (www.ingelook.com). I wear a wrap-around smile all day when I receive a Look.

     Chance encounters dot the route to postcard nirvana. The postman on our beat often stops his moped on the kerb to hand-deliver my bunch of cards from Slovenia, Antigua and Barbuda, and Russia. His colleagues at the local post-office giggle as they frank my outgoing cards, checking out the bright images.

     True to Magalhaes’ vision, Postcrossers today range from children learning English or geography at school to their grandparents — and every shade of person in between. Project statistics prove that, far from living in device-driven virtual space, the average Postcrosser is about 26!

     Numerically, Russia has 42,200 Postcrossers, followed by the US (41,492), China (35,561), and the Netherlands (25,992). At 770 postcards an hour, and 2,043,406 laps around the world, the few locations untouched by Postcrossing might justify a teetering off the map: American Samoa, Malvinas, the South Sandwich Islands, Tokelau and so on.

     The solitariness of writing daily no longer troubles me. All I need to recharge my creative spirit is a long-distance telecon with a dear friend or a postcard from Cyprus, Japan, or Finland. Reading between the lines, my blues vanish in a trice as I set off for unexplored destinations.

(This article originally appeared in The Hindu Business Line on February 22, 2013)

Link:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/weekend-life/post-a-pickmeup/article4435654.ece?homepage=true&ref=wl_home/
 

Travel: Jaisalmer ~ Camelback communique

With Ramu, at the dunes outside Jaisalmer, 1999

The Rabaris, also called Raikas in Marwar, are the breeders of camels. They assert that their ancestor was brought into existence by Lord Mahadeo in order to take care of the first camel, which was created by Parvati for her amusement.

~ Rajputana Gazetteers, Vol. III, by Major K D Eerskine, Calcutta (1908)

His name is Ramu. Deoram, astride the second hump of a seat behind me, tells me so. His gait is awkward and lurching. Tending towards a ramble. Or even a shuffle. One step backwards for every two forward ~ or that’s how it feels to a novice rider like me. I seem to be astride a moving hillock ~ and I’m trying my best not to fall off. And when he’s on a canter, while I teeter precariously atop him, it is quite a dizzying experience.

Ramu’s snout is abuzz with sandflies; he snorts frequently to persuade them to go away. But they return to bug him. So, he trots and frets and tosses his head wildly, while I grit my teeth and clench my teeth, clinging onto the ropes that swing from Ramu’s snout to my hands. I don’t fancy a dramatic toss onto the sparkling desert sands of the Thar in Rajasthan.

 My companions on the camelback adventure share my feelings. I’m one of five amateur riders on an hour’s camel ride from the outskirts of Jaisalmer to the Sam dhani or dunes at the edge of the Thar desert, known as the site of spectacular sunsets.

We start out by jeep from Jaisalmer en route to Sam (pronounced S-a-a-m), 42 km away. As we drive along the smooth asphalt from the desert city, which boasts of a golden sandstone fortress and exquisite havelis, babul shrubs teem by the roadside. The early evening sun dazzles our eyes, attuned to mile upon mile of bright wasteland. There are few dwellings in sight. Nothing seems to move or grow or thrive.

A sudden screech of brakes. The rubber sears the road. The jeep halts. And we spot the reason why.

A family of camel-herders stand by the wayside. They strike up a conversation with the jeep driver in Marwari, the regional language around Jodhpur and Jaisalmer.

Our driver returns. Would we like to ride to the dunes, he asks. These are honest men, he assures us, adding that he has known this foursome of Rabaris for years. “It’s just Rs.100 per head ~ all the way to Sam, a ride of over an hour. And they will drop you back to the jeep after sunset,” he tosses in a bonus. It is an offer we cannot resist.

Deoram, who owns Ramu, encourages me to jump astride his kneeling camel. Ramu tosses his head disdainfully and goes hrrrrrumph! The snorting so close to my ear is unnerving. 

As Ramu sways, rides and lurches skywards on his spindly legs, I shriek with fear. Around me, my companions are on camelback, but two to a camel for moral support. I could do with some, too. So, Ramu kneels once more and burly, moustachioed Deoram, who’s 28 ~ clad in a weather-worn white dhoti and kurta ~ accompanies me on Ramu. Before he gets on, I notice that he strips a branch off a desert shrub and twirls it.

Don’t hit Ramu, I say, fearing the worst.

As our caravan of four camels strides towards the dunes, I overhear a breeze-wafted conversation from atop Bijli, who strides alongside us.

“Have you been to school?” the tourist from Gwalior asks Pirdan, Deoram’s younger brother. He is bright-eyed and lively at barely 20.

‘Yes, I’ve studied till Class X. I’m the only one in our family who has studied so far…”

“Are you married?” the tourist persists.

“I got married four years ago, at 16,” Pirdan replies. “”I was engaged when I was seven. She’s from our community.”

“Child marriage!” exclaims the Gwalior man. “How could you allow it?”

“It’s part of our tradition,” responds Pirdan. “I’m proud to be a part of it… We even allow widow remarriage.”

What does your family do, I ask Deoram.

“We’re Rabaris, camel-herders,” he responds in Marwari, which sounds like a first cousin to Hindi. “We rear and tend camels. We’ve been lived this way for generations, perhaps centuries.”

Has he had Ramu for long? “For 12 years now,” Deoram says with pride. “I bought him at the annual cattle fair at Pushkar, near Ajmer.”

My curiosity gets the better of my manners. How much does a camel cost?

“About Rs. 15,000 to 20,000,” Deoram’s voice is gruff as he uses his makeshift whip to gently spur Raju to a canter, for the other camels are setting a lively pace.

How does his family live around the year? “We sometimes hire our camels out to draw carts,” Deoram’s mama or maternal uncle replies from Mayur-back, as he trots ahead of Ramu. “During the tourist season from October to February, we charge Rs. 100 per ride to the dunes. We have four camels, so we make about Rs. 400 per day. This is a good season for us. But times are not so good in summer…”

A dry season in every sense? “It’s tough to feed the family then,” Deoram, who has studied upto Std. VIII, picks up the thread of the conversation. “My parents, my mama, my brother and our families, we all live together. Since we aren’t farmers, and the land is so parched, our meals then are very frugal…”

Hrrrrrrrrrumphhh, says Ramu, lurching along, contributing his mite to the small talk. The sandflies buzz on and on about his snout.

Does Ramu respond to his name? Deoram laughs, “Of course. When he’s out grazing and I call his name like this  ~ Ramoooooooo ~  he stops wherever he is. Then, it’s easy to find him…”

Ramu tosses his head and grunts at this point, as if in assent.

We cross mile upon mile of sun-bleached scrubland. The caravans before us have carved a path through the arid waste. So, Ramu follows Bijli and Mayur without missing a step.

“Do you know,” Deoram suddenly breaks into a torrent of words, “the oonthwalas or camel-herders of Sam are thieves? They take you for a ride of just 10 or 15 steps and charge you Rs. 100!” His voice peaks with indignation. “Then, they stop and refuse to go another step unless you pay Rs. 75…They cheat everyone. And they’re Muslims…”

(That seems strange when, later, I hear from a schoolmate in Jaipur that the Rabari community embraces both Muslims and Hindus. She even knows of Muslims in Rajasthan with Hindu names).

As Ramu shuffles on while I careen from side to side ~ I’m told the speedy camels of Jaisalmer can cover 100 km in a night ~ Deoram periodically waves his arm to indicate the dunes in the distance. Time seems to blur as we weave, sway and stagger our way towards the horizon.

Over a hump in the land, in a split second, time comes to a standstill. Wave upon wave of golden curves, breeze-kissed and vegetation-free, spell a magical ocean of golden grains. Amidst the rise and fall of the dunes are caparisoned camels in stately procession, their riders mere silhouettes at that height.

The radiant sun is still overhead. It singes the sandy slopes in the background orange. Flames shade the edge of the horizon, where the sky fuses with the landscape.

The stillness of waiting is pierced by bhopas or folk minstrels, singing the plaintive strains of Maro Desh Marwar (my land is Marwar). Colourful safas or turbans on their heads, embroidered mojris on their feet, playing on a ravanhatta (Ravana’s bow), they offer a vocal votive feast to the glorious sunset.

As their voices stream from song to song, the skies respond as if ablaze. Fiery oranges blend into passionate reds, mauves vie for skypower with burnt pinks. Prussian blues appear at the edge of the aerial canvas ~ until both the sunset palette and the eye drown in a star-drenched sky.

Within a half-hour, dozens of camels tread the timeless desert sands on their way back to tents, hotels or vehicles. We wind our way back to Ramu and Mayur, only to find Deoram and his brother rivetted by alien rites of courtship. All tall foreigner reaches for the hand of his girlfriend behind a dune.

“Gora kitna harami hain! (The foreigner is a rascal)”, exclaims Deoram. Pirdan responds with, “Dekho, gori to chher raha hain! Besharam! (Look, he’s touching the white girl. Shameless”)

Neither the constant tourist traffic in the Jaisalmer area nor the passage of time nor thousands of sunsets have tinted the lives of the Rabaris. Theirs is a world wrought aeons ago.

But we, who live today, have to re-tune ourselves to the present. I get onto Ramu once more, this time with less trepidation, and trot all the way to the jeep without toppling off. A solo trip this time.

Off the camel trail, after a special evening thanks to Ramu and his ilk, we return to Jaisalmer.

We carry with us memories of a glowing sun merging into a dazzle of stars, and shoes filled with pure gold ~ of Sam sand.

(Sunday Herald, Bangalore, January 1999)