PUBLIC
2023
 This life model of a photographer in 1960s had an innocence of an age before the women's identity politics? She is standing. Today also women stand for hours as salesgirls in huge textile shops. And they learn to stand in strike. The discreet innocence is something we can only clone - |  One thing that strikes us looking at those archival magazine images, is this aspiration for "innocence" in the female models embodied in postures, gestures, eyes and settings. This is again constructed in "peaceful" indoor settings like that of the girl painting, or like here in some threshold to nature - Note on this collaborative image by Sudha KF |
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 It is Kavitha Balakrishnan romancing the photo-narrative in her own way. She dreams, not family life or its objects in bubbles but the 'metaphors' of life she 'real'-izes to form the bubbles in life as woman |  It is a woman's dream of 'family life' in which the bubbles show up her possessions of house, utensils etc - |
 There is an element of reflection of the self; a certain embodiment of self love, in the former image rather literally. In the "twins" image, it came about during the project when we came up with the idea, why not me be both the women? This twinned mirror image, which is not exactly a twinned image, because they vary in postures, when brought together invokes a sense of 'womanhood' and looking into oneself for me. Because they are rather sensuous postures but expressions are almost dead or grave |  These images have been constructed as a play of both "innocence" and "sensuality". Though these images have been constructed by photographers and the models mostly in studios, invoking the "ideal type", when I was \being a model i was also parodying this re-presentation of woman; sometimes by celebrating one's own self/body like in the mirror looking images and the "twins" image. |
 we are as women negotiating patriarchal realities and constantly oscillating between resistance and belongingness. Also these group of images could be categorised into two " the ones with the "traditional" woman/body in it, clad in the customary blouse and skirt and not meaning to invoke sensuality and the "modern" woman in "modern" clothes invoking "sensuality". |  And then we with the same body plays both these types of women again I think we are playing with these boundaries or neat compartments. |
 'Black Mother – Contemporary Heroine Chilappatikaram’ : A series of Analogue photographic prints by senior art photographer Abul Kalam Azad |  Artist’s Solo projects : young generation artists like Dibin Thilakan, Hima Hari, Amjum Rizwe participated in the show. They focused on site specific art work installations at lived spaces of this rural people. Amjum&Hima placed their drawings on mat at a local tea shop |
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 An English Connection: Organised by the young generation Malayalam poet Kuzhur Wilson, there was also a project with Charlie Holt, reputed UK based artist who has been taking peculiar interest in this region recently. Charlie, a fully English person travelled to India two times, the place where his ancestors were ruling once. He interacted well with artists and poets here. He carried the contemporary worn out wall posters of the streets in Kerala to his UK home, to work out collages. |  Contra Diction of Malayali Looking Public: The small hall inside the Logan House was the venue for the part of a thoroughly researched archival curation of 20th century representation of women in Malayalam Periodical magazines, executed by Kavitha Balakrishnan with an academic assistance of Chitra Sudhakaran. |
 Mural at the Logan Bungalow: Mithra Kamalam, a promising art student in a nearby Fine Arts College, executed mural work around the outer walls of the still extant building which is an abandoned village office. This worn out building is supposedly where William Logan spent some of his time, preparing the Malabar Manual. The mural by Mithra was a reflection of the discreet world of animals, plants, fruits, birds and human life found in the present day surroundings |  Myth of a Chaste Woman who burnt the city : The Project called Black Mother - Contemporary Heroines as part of its social documentation using photo art, also started engaging the subjects in their work with a question and it yielded very interesting result. The question was - Do you know Kannagi? |
Pages from the Mind Watch (2016) / Parables of Mathilakam (2014) / Varavazhi / Graphic Story-1 / Graphic Story-2 /
THE PAGES OF MIND-WATCH
This is a Photoromance Project conceived by Kavitha alongwith her friends who found randomly interested in sharing their life vis-a-vis their female stereotypes. The language of mockery and image cloning in this project, consciously negate the seriousness of the language of photo-romancing that has an attitude of documentation and a 'political re-draft of the patriarchal social narrative'.'Pages from the Mindwatch' is rather a life that is being lived out and this is raising questions in history
Parables of Mathilakam -2014
Contemporary Art in an Indian Village
Present day 'Mathilakam Grama Panchayat’ is one among the many elective village councils in India in the state of Kerala.This place was once known as 'Thrikkanamathilakam'. It was part of the buzzing Muziris township of trade, knowledge and creativity of Trisangham period. Situated between the ancient Muziris and Tyndis ports during the Sangam period, Trikana Mathilakam was one of the important centers of Jain religion and learning. The peaceful Jain monastery of Trikkanamathilakam is believed to have hosted the poet Ilango Adigal, a Jain poet-prince from Chera Dynasty, the brother of the Chera king Cheran Chenguttuvan and the author of Tamil Classic Chilappathikaram'. One of the five great epics of Tamil Sangam literature, the Chilappathikaram is a poetic monologue rendition with details of Sangam period culture; its varied religions; its town plans and city types; the mingling of Greek, Arab, indigenous people; and the arts of dance and music. Varied commercial and cultural link of this area with South Arabia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Rome since the Iron Age is evident from both textual and archaeological sources. So Mathilakam is part of a larger region in present day Kerala that has deep bilingual (contemporary Malayalam & Tamil spanning a major portion of South India) connections with the neighboring state of Tamilnadu by way of its Tamilagam legacy. Mathilakam is also one among the many contemporary Indian villages that are caught in the large current of a homogenized and globalized world, inspite of the uniquely pluralistic historical pasts of many of them. Mathilakam is one possible specimen of the cultural dynamism of Indian contemporary villages.
It seemed very challenging when the Member of Legislative Assembly of this place Adv.V.S.Sunilkumar inspired and initiated me to design an independent segment as part of ‘Chilappathikaram Festival’, the second version of a collateral initiative of local governance bodies of this place and the first edition of Kochi Musiriz Biennial started in 2012.
'ThrikkanaMathilakam Porulukal' as I named the segment, wanted to bring attention to the fact that that the large part of rural Indians are left out from contemporary art, its practices and aesthetics. Even the large scale Biennial initiatives are fundamentally focusing on urban ‘internationalism’ and the branding of art practices while their local collateral works are mere tags to prove its so called inclusiveness. 'ThrikkanaMathilakam Porulukal' was an alternative and experimental initiative to set up a sort of artist residency, social documentation of contemporary life in a sustainable thread of pluralistic spirituality, a co-existence of the sacred and the mundane. All this was happening in a village with no infrastructure for art shows. Sites were to be found out and allowed for. However, the social documentation and presentation of everyday life, art, architecture, native environment, common people and their beliefs / practices turned up as an integral aspect of this rural public art initiative. So reputed contemporary Indian photo-artist Abulkalam Azad under the banner of Ekalokam Trust for Photography based at Thiruvannamalai participated as a major contributor to the show. Representatives of people, politicians, youth, priests, laborers, locality’s much loved artists, photographers, historians and other cross-sections of people who have felt some belongingness to this ancient village of Matilakam could be involved in this rural art initiative. The exhibitions and events found its sites of execution at the existing local heritage spaces, family houses, sacred establishments, bridges, streets, markets, ponds, water ways etc.
Kochi Biennial’s segment of the Chilappathikaram Festival was focusing on celebrating womanhood. This Classic literary work projects heroine, Kannagi. She was a chaste woman who with a lot of perseverance waited for her husband Kovalan who went in search of worldly pleasures and lost all his wealth to a damsel who wooed him in another city. On return, Kovalan set out with his wife’s golden ornament, ‘chilambu’, to be sold in order for him to make a living. But the King’s men mistook him for a thief who wanted to sell stuff. The King punished him to death. Kannagi, the chaste wife who was silently suffering her plight till then, set out to challenge the King for justice. Her fires of anger simply burnt the city.
Both myth and history inspire people to identify with certain situations. But can the myth of a heroine be celebrated just for its own sake? First of all one needs to find if the myth exists at all as such, in the undercurrents of people’s everyday life.
Project called Black Mother - Contemporary Heroines as part of its social documentation using photo art, also started engaging the subjects in their work with a question and it yielded very interesting result. The question was - Do you know Kannagi? The results are as follows:
I watched a movie in which Kannagi was the main character. She was the heroine… You are talking about the Kannagi from that movie right?, I actually do not remember the name of the movie…(Sulochana, 70 years)