hawkplay Bengal Biennale: New Strokes On Tagore’s Canvas
Updated:2024-12-25 06:26 Views:84
Nikhil Chopra creating the representation of a deluge in front of a live audience, commenting on the fragile ecological balance | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty Nikhil Chopra creating the representation of a deluge in front of a live audience, commenting on the fragile ecological balance | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty
Cultural erasure, the struggle for preservation and a Santhal village that becomes a metaphor for the forgotten communities in our society—Mithu Sen—in her first exhibition in Shantiniketan transforms the village of Pearson Pally into a declarative canvas in the inaugural Bengal Biennale. Young Santhali children, her collaborators in the project, ‘I am Ol chiki’, have meticulously painted the houses in this community in strong black and white murals with the letters of the Ol chiki script, something even the Santhal community itself knows very little about. Turning the mud walls into canvases, Sen and her collaborators mark their presence on Bengal’s landscape. The Bengal Biennalehawkplay, inaugurated at Shantiniketan in its first phase, provides space for many such alternative presences.
Nikhil Chopra’s live performance piece at the Biennale | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty Nikhil Chopra’s live performance piece at the Biennale | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty
Like Sen’s work, art as a political tool is the crux of Nikhil Chopra’s performance-based live painting. From under a grey calico cotton canvas, he emerges laboriously, bites a piece of charcoal and smears it on his mouth. The audience becomes an active collaborator in his painting of a deluge, the one he faced during his first visit to Shantiniketan. His artwork, ‘When Land Becomes Water’, muses about the state of the fragile ecological system.
Pearson Pally: The alleys where Mithu Sen’s murals find a home | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty Pearson Pally: The alleys where Mithu Sen’s murals find a home | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty
Reclamation of space and collective memory are recurring themes of many works in the Biennale.
Sen and Sanyasi Lohar with her collaborators from Perason Pally | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty Sen and Sanyasi Lohar with her collaborators from Perason Pally | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty
For the young artists of GABAA, the Biennale offers opportunities for collaboration. Ex-students of Kala Bhavan, Shantiniketan, Ritushree Mondal, Himanshu Sharma, Rabiul Khan and Surajit Mudi in collaboration with the Homemakers of Birbhum, have created ‘Kanthar Ghor’ (a house of Kantha). These women are not trained weavers or embroiderers by trade; they usually sew in quiet domestic spaces for their families.
Glimpses: Kanthar Ghor | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty Glimpses: Kanthar Ghor | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty
Here, stitching becomes an act of self-recognition for them, much like the murals in Pearson Pally. The ownership of memory and space thus becomes the driving factor in Kanthar Ghor, where biographies, however mundane, are stitched into the pieces.
Glimpses: Devdutt Pattanaik with his exhibit at the Biennale | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty Glimpses: Devdutt Pattanaik with his exhibit at the Biennale | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty
The works also open new possibilities of cultural assimilation and an opportunity for mutual learning from communities. The idea is equally reflected in the work of Eva Zanettin and Raghav Pasricha. Their film, Crossing the Divide, along with the photo exhibition that has found a home in Sanatan Siddhashram, the ashram of singer and mystic, Parvati Baul, explore the concept of love and humanism propagated by the Bauls and fakirs through centuries in their verses. For the duo, it’s a way to open up these conversations and the philosophy of humanism to a larger audience. The film, shot over months by the two of them while staying with the Bauls, explores their distinct traditions and identity in detail. For the Zanettin and Pasricha, it was a vehicle for collaboration and interpersonal learning.
g2g slot Eva Zanettin and Raghav Pasricha in front of their exhibit on the Bauls and fakirs | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty Eva Zanettin and Raghav Pasricha in front of their exhibit on the Bauls and fakirs | Photo: Animikh Chakrabarty
The mythological artworks of Devdutt Pattanaik at the Biennale weave stories through symbols. ‘My Truth’, his aptly named exhibit, acknowledges the traditions of the world along with his own non-linear thought process.
BY Outlook Sports Desk
The Bengal Biennale, through its efforts to work with the global and the local in tandem, sparks a wide range of dialogues and aims to find new ways to sustain a conversation even after the curtain drops.
