ONE WITH NATURE
ARTIST JAYASHREE CHAKRAVARTY TALKS ABOUT HER TRYSTS WITH NATURE AND FORGOTTEN WORDS
I An artist inspired by nature is seldom news. But for Jayashree Chakravarty, 60, nature isn't a source of inspiration but the soul of her creations. The artist, who has for the last three decades, lived in the planned satellite township of Salt Lake, talks to SIMPLY KOLKATA about witnessing urbanisation unfold infront of her.
Salt Lake wasn’t always this symmetrical,
urban planning wonder of Kolkata. As the foreword by Soumik Nandy Majumdar to Chakravarty’s exhibition Unfolding Kuchinan, in Akar Prakar says “Long before Calcutta expanded eastward to Salt Lake, in 1958, Kuchinan was shown in an antique map of Calcutta in 1952. It was the area where today’s Bengal Chemical Factory stands. A hurricane and a simultaneous earthquake in 1737 ruined Kuchinan. The main river system Vidyadhari collapsed, and Salt Lake was born.”
But the word Kuchinan has disappeared from Kolkata’s folklore or even popularly recalled history. Any Kolkatan worth their salt will be able to name the three villages that gave rise to Kolkata— Kalikata, Sutanuti and Gobindapur. Those names though not popular now still endure. Sutanuti, that could still be recalled through the Shobhabajar-Sutanuti Metro station, has been renamed. Gobindapur, is remembered as the place where British built Fort William. But Kuchinan has remained hidden in the pages of history. Even Google, the first pitstop for any research redirects one to Russian athlete Maria Kuchina and La Kuchina, a restaurant in Bhopal (curiously so, since a geographically closer option would be La Cucina the Italian specialty restaurant Hyatt Regency in Salt Lake).
“The word Kuchinan is such a beautiful word. Why have we forgotten it? Ultadanga is still Ultadanga, Kankurgachi is still Kankurgachi but no one knows Kuchinan,” says the artist. Just like the word Kuchinan, the Salt Lake of the 80s, the one she made her home, too has disappeared. It’s been a subject she keeps returning to. “When I moved here in 1982, it was a marshland of sorts. Full of tall grasses, lots of waterbound creatures and there was plenty of light and air. Even the sky was different,” she says. What would be a pain for many, was a source of artistic delight for her. “Snakes would curl up on the stairs, the snails would crawl in through any window opening crevices they could find and there were lots of birds… perhaps because people started feeding them,” she remembers. But at least Salt Lake is an area where each block is allotted a park and the boulevards are tree-lined. “But now even the parks have iron nets, iron bars, walls surrounding them. Earlier going to the neighbourhood park was an experience I loved. Now I feel like I am in a cage. It can be an interesting to see through these nets but my overall feeling is that of being removed from nature,” she says.
Urbanisation and its resultant ecological degradation has been a subject that has bothered Chakravarty. One such example is Lost Lake Under the City, that’s travelling to Musee Des Arts Asiatiques, Nice, France (along with 25 more of her works) in collaboration with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art new Delhi, ICCR, Emabassy of India in France and Akar Prakar (which showed select pieces of hers in Unfolding Kuchinan that was held last month) that are also for Namaste France 2016. “Every year it gets hotter. There are skeletons of fish dying in dried water bodies. And we seem to uproot the smaller houses, right from its very root like a tooth, and create big houses over them,” she says. Her work is what gives her shelter. “While the easel at times could not contain her exploding universe, she had to find newer ways to spill-out and took recourse to scrolls, and from thereon moved to physical structures that are reminiscent of shelters—wombs, cocoons, webs,” says Roobina Karode, Director and Chief Curator, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.
Chakravarty finds inspiration in strange things. Sometimes a bandage from a cut. “Sometimes the weeds that have fallen by the wayside, and slowly degrade after being crushed on to the ground, dissolve with wind and rain,” she says. A lot of it comes from her daily morning strolls through her area, “interesting weeds, and pieces of grass” that she doesn’t quite know where to use but might find a use for later. Sometimes it turns up fortuitously like the sediment and gunk that clogs, that tank cleaners dredged up during routine maintenance of her house. “They were quite surprised when they asked me what to do with it. I said keep it,” she laughs.
That’s perhaps what’s so fascinating about her work even for the untrained eye. It feels like one is going to those morning strolls with her with the same sense of wonder as a child combing the beach for seashells.
“THE WORD KUCHINAN IS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL WORD. WHY HAVE WE FORGOTTEN IT? ULTADANGA IS STILL ULTADANGA, KANKURGACHI IS STILL KANKURGACHI BUT NO ONE KNOWS KUCHINAN” §Jayashree Chakravarty