An inside-outside view

Visual anthropologist and curator Dr. Neelima Jeychandran finds Kochi to be the right place for big art.

October 23, 2014 08:08 pm | Updated April 12, 2016 04:03 am IST

Kochi, Kerala, 23/10/2014: Curator Neelima Jayachandran during an interaction with The Hindu Metro Plus in Kochi. Photo:Thulasi Kakkat

Kochi, Kerala, 23/10/2014: Curator Neelima Jayachandran during an interaction with The Hindu Metro Plus in Kochi. Photo:Thulasi Kakkat

Kochi - by the seaside, small, quiet and sleepy, showing signs of modernisation, in conflict with its old and new identities - holds at its core a draw that has brought people to its shores for centuries. From its crucible, where cultures met and mixed, rises a mystery that continues to offer creative fodder. Little wonder then that the city was chosen, quite effortlessly and easily, uncontested, as the one most befitting to hold an international art festival, the Kochi Muziris Biennale. This event, in its second edition, is now bringing charmed visitors, students, curators, globetrotters and curious janta to the city, encouraging them to take a first-hand impression of the intriguing cityscape.

Visual anthropologist and curator Dr. Neelima Jeychandran, an out-an-out Malayali, who has ironically spent her life, for the most part, outside Kerala has relocated to Kochi for her current curatorial project and her next work on Theyyam, which will be presented at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles in 2017. “I am from here; this is my home base and I speak Malayalam,” says Neelima with a clear American accent.

Kochi is at the heart of her work, discovered and assessed from different angles. Her dissertation History, Memory and Cultural Display in the Former Colonial Port Cities of Elmina, Ghana and Fort Cochin, India , is a work that spans centuries of exchange between the two strategic coasts of Africa and Western India. “Elmina facilitated the gold trade, Fort Cochin the spice; products that pushed Europe into modernity,” she says.

As a visual anthropologist Neelima’s methodology of research depends on field work rather than on existing archival references.

It got her talking with laymen, gentry, communities, studying their ways, habits, listening to tales, observing accents, behaviour and documenting her research. It took her to the heart of African spirit worship and she found thriving remnants here.

“People’s history is always transmitted through cultural memory and that is seen through living tradition. A certain kind of understanding of culture can be developed only through immersion,” she says adding that archival documentation can be authoritarian.

Neelima walked the talk, so to speak, with her work in urban curation that is about changing landscapes of old cities. Fort Kochi offered her the right material. She ferreted out minor details of past and present, of a coexistence that has global appeal.

“In the last 10 years Fort Kochi has become a heritage zone and it now hosts the art biennale. It is a wonderful example of how a small city has the possibilities to hold a large scale festival, of it specifically offering cultural engagement, and how the entire place is a large public space, an open air museum without its spirit getting diffused. Kochi is more approachable and connecting in comparison to other metropolises. It is now being studied in the classrooms of US,” she says.

Her curatorial project for KMB, ‘Critical Juncture’, is about the point of a cultural shift when there is a possibility, politically and socially, to make structural or institutional changes. As an example she cites the Arab Spring. ‘Critical Juncture’ uses this theory to bring six Polish and five Indian artists who will present works made from practices that emanate from social engagement. The artists will delve into matters of land degradation, ecology, cultural encounters, migration, the current diaspora and related subjects.

The city and its issues will be looked at from newer perspectives and the works will be on show.

Neelima will be the point person, along with co-curator Magda Fabianczyk for the artists wishing for introduction, understanding and direction for their projects. With her in-depth research on old and new aspects and facade of the city she will be facilitating art processes related to Kochi and Kerala.

“The city has a lot of scope and rich cultural history. I have never lived in Kerala but my research has been on Kerala,” she says.

Neelima is looking forward to help shape aesthetics that will throw new light on Kochi and on her State, despite her relationship with Kerala being one of home and away.

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