HYDERABAD: Artist, researcher and teacher Naini Arora takes pride in bringing elements of life to her art. At her session ‘Kunst Forum’ – Art Talk at Goethe Zentrum, she shared her experiences in showcasing her work in Germany. Naini’s exhibit was part of a show curated by Anja Ellenberger. Anja was in Hyderabad as part of the artist exchange programme and Naini had attended the workshop. “The session had a powerful discussion on who an artist is. A great divide unfortunately exists in the society between art and people. India is a wonderful mix where we have traditional and modern practices right in the middle. Those things were mind churning,” she recalls. Anja was also in the process of selecting artists for her curatorial show in Germany. “I didn’t have a functional studio because my works were digital; time-based installations. I showed her a couple of videos and photographs,” she says, adding that Anja was impressed and asked her if she would be willing to participate in an exhibition; that opened the doors for Naini to experiment.
She reached Hamburg in April and stayed there for three weeks. “My experience in Germany was wonderful because I was received well and I received them well,” laughs Naini and adds, “Anja had told me that it was a castle, like a holiday place built by a wealthy person. When he died, it became a permanent resting place for his widow Maria Aurora von Königsmarck. When I reached there, everybody said you might have a relation with Maria Aurora because you are Naini Arora!”
Thus began Naini’s journey with her imagination of what is the experience of widowhood. The basis was her thoughts on her grandmother, a widow for 20 years. “I thought about it that for a widow it is not loneliness; it is about aloneness,” she says and recalls the life led by her grandmother, who had a large family of children and grandchildren. “Her large life was shrunk to a trunk and it was filled with memories and one could find photographs and saris. Often she would come over and say, ‘In my youth, I had thick beautiful hair. Look at me now, what has happened. Why should I get worried? Who is there to see me?’
Naini says she experienced a sound in her imagination and created an installation. She collaborated with Carnatic vocalist TK Saroja and created a woodcut with jute strings. “The most amazing part was Anja didn’t see any work but had left some space only from my description. It was a magical moment when my work fitted well.”
Earlier she was the faculty at IIIT, but now she teaches at Shrishti Institute in Bengaluru. She often comes to Hyderabad for her Ph.D. “If we see superficially, being an artist, teacher and research student is different, but it is not. The thoughts I have as an artist I have to articulate them when I am teaching and in research I have to prove that. Yes, it is difficult when I am working and I have a class to take but it also keeps me alive at some place.”
