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PUBLIC

2023

 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)

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