Of Emptiness and Identities
Curator of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016, Sudarshan Shetty, talks about how he’s trying to kill the void post the mega event and why culture is more than an embellishment
The curator of Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016, Sudarshan Shetty, who managed to get six lakh people from across the world to the tiny coastal town, can finally take his shoes off and peace. He can nurse a single malt, talk about how spacious Chandigarh is, and why it is not just the Biennale and literature festivals that states should be looking at to reclaim their cultural ethos.
Ask this 56-year-old artist who has delved in painting, sculpture, installation, sound and performance, if empty spaces came face to face once the Biennale concluded, and he says, “Of course, there was a huge vacuum. Though I had done two shows in-between, but after it ended, I couldn’t think of anything to do.”
Stressing that it is the people’s participation that makes the Kochi Biennale such a huge success, Shetty observes that truckloads of common people arriving from villages, engaging with art and fisherwomen, comparing one Biennale to another is what makes the emotional quotient of working on such a project so interesting. “The fact that it is held in Kerala is a major reason for its success,” he adds.
The artist feels that such mega art events may be doing wonders to the state economy and local businesses but states must learn to look beyond literature festivals and biennales and avoid replicating models that may not work in other geographical locations. “The need is to look within, understand one's own culture and devise a new format. It can be anything. It is important that people start conceiving it as something that is their own.”
In the current scenario, when people can be booked under sedition for celebrating Pakistan’s cricket team win over India, the artist, whose work explores absence admits that it can be rather stifling. “We have never lived in such unusual times. How are we in a true democracy when artists now have to think about the consequences of their work – how the vigilantes will react?”
A graduate from Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai, the artist, who is all set to present a show in Vienna in October and in Dubai in January, feels that in order to overhaul art education in the country, the primary question to be addressed is —‘Can art be taught’? This is something that is being discussed the world over. Art has moved out of the studio and found a footing in different sectors—doctors and aeronautical engineers are exploring ideas in art. Honestly, I do not have an answer. One just needs to think how to allow people explore their own spaces in multiple ways,” he says.
The need is to look within, understands one's own culture and devise a new format. Sudarshan Shetty, Artist