Visthar

Visual artist C F John, photographer/visual artist T M Azis, and dancer/ choreographer Tripura Kashyap, had previously received a seed grant to develop ideas for two installations/ performances around an open well and a quilt. By the end of the three-month preparatory phase, the collaborators had conceptualised the installations through working sketches, photographs and short pieces of choreography. They then approached IFA again for the full-fledged grant, with the notebook sketches and written documents as evidence of the work they had accomplished with the seed grant. This material demonstrated the depth and intricacy of their collaborative work. They had attempted to explore and integrate the language of visual art and dance with reference to the well and the quilt, and create visual and movement sketches for the proposed installations/ performances. The artists had sought to transcend individual artistic idioms through consistent interactions.

One of the central concerns of the project was to locate art in alternative, non-urban, non-elitist spaces, provoking audiences to see art outside its conventional contexts. While their preparatory work around the well demonstrated to some effect their concern with creating alternative spaces for art works, in their decision to install and perform their work around the quilt at the Sumukha Gallery, they appear to have submitted to conventional ideas about presenting art. The preparatory phase enabled the artists to establish a foundation for the collaboration and also to work out their ideas for the larger project in all its details. All the collaborators kept notebooks to develop the ideas visually. The notebooks, coupled with a series of photographs testing the visual possibilities of each idea, are particularly fascinating. John and Azis scanned some of the photographs and worked over them to create the sketches for the proposed installation. Tripura used the photographs of her moving body in relation to the well to think through ideas of choreography. One of the exciting things about this collaboration is that each artist began to move beyond the ways in which they normally conceive their work.

The full-fledged grant will support the collaborators through the process of executing their working sketches, culminating in an installation/performance around the well, and another around the quilt at the Sumukha Gallery. Three new resource persons – a musician/ light designer, a filmmaker who will document the process on video, and a poet – will be part of this second phase of work beginning in March 2002. In the first two months, John and Azis will collate their installation ideas on the well and then convert some of them into three-dimensional installations. Azis would also photograph the entire process. Tripura will simultaneously develop the storyboard for the choreography as well, and be involved in the installations and photo sessions. The filmmaker will document on video the movement improvisations and rehearsals, planning and execution of installations, and interactions between the collaborators and the community of well-diggers living in the nearby village of Narayanapura.

The artists also wish to visit certain arts colleges and make presentations in the hope of getting students involved in the project. Installations will be mounted at select areas on the Visthar campus. Between July and October, the artists will work on the quilt for the event at Sumukha. The artists seek to weave together as a metaphorical quilt, the work of contemporary visual artists like Sheela Gowda, Shyamala, Ramesh Kalkur, Raghavendra Rao, Umesh, Ravishankar Rao, Shantamani, Srinivas Prasad and Smitha Cariappa. They have chosen these artists because of their similar concerns and parallel histories in non-conventional arts practice. The collaborators have already decided on a book. They are keen to take the installation/performance around the quilt as well as a photo exhibition and video of the well installation to different cities.