There is a story in every journey, reads the business card of Belgian Helga Peeters, elucidating the nature of her work. “Kerala will have its own story,” says the traveller-entrepreneur and social worker whose company ‘Anubhuti’ is all about creating unique experiences. As part of that Helga has acquired an old warehouse on Bazaar Road in Mattancherry that will open this year end as a bridge for artists, writers and performers from the East and the West.
It was on a visit to the city during the Kochi Muziris Biennale, 2014, that Helga experienced the beauty of the city and sensed a potential therein for a larger purpose. She felt that an art festival of top international quality, like the Biennale, needed more exposure in Europe and that Kochi was conducive for artists from the West to experience the East. “This seemed like a place of confluence,” said Helga who is extremely familiar with India, having travelled in the Himalayas for three years and later to different parts of the country.
When she launched ‘Anubhuti’, 10 years ago, she made her love for India amply clear. “People ask me why I keep going back to India. I compare the land to an onion. It has so many layers. It keeps unravelling with newer facets.”
Kochi to her is the experiential destination. The heritage warehouse, with ginger drying in the courtyard, she says has the perfect ambiance. Strangely, on all her journeys, some as a tour guide, she offers ginger tea to her guests. “And here I find a property that has dried ginger in the courtyard. I am not going to change that,” she says excitedly of her plans to revamp the building. The space that will open in December will begin with a show by up-coming artist Jean Marie Bytebier, who will also be the face of the residency. The centre will have rooms, a café and a performing space.
Setting up a centre in Kochi is the high point in Helga’s long and meandering journey across different lands, which began in the early 80s in the Hunza Valley, above Gilgit. She worked with the people there learning their language and teaching them English. She encouraged the women to embroider their indigenous style on scarves and jackets for which she found markets in Belgium. After three years of dedicated work, she handed over the project to the Aga Khan Foundation. In reverse she promoted the need for school uniforms for the girls of Hunza Valley at Unesco and enabled that. In India she began work with nomads in Ladakh. This work has continued for 20 years. “Ladakh is my speciality. From there I got to know more about the rest of India.”
As her work between her two worlds took concrete shape, Helga started an NGO, Care For Joy, last year. “On my travels I feel the need to give back something to the local people because of the love received from them. It is overwhelming,” she says on the setting up of kid’s spaces in co-operation with local schools.
The kids’ space in a school at Puga in Spituk Valley, at 4,000 m altitude, is all about the challenges faced by the children who brave the hostile weather and come to school. “The nomadic families there now face the question of whether to continue with an itinerant life or settle down.” On her part she encourages the children to continue with their traditional craft of weaving, spinning, along with the study of mathematics, and school syllabus. While she works with them in Ladakh, she organises sponsorship for the school in Belgium.
In a programme called Happy Flex school children raise money for their lesser privileged counterparts in far away lands. Helga plans to use this template in Kerala. “The idea behind creating local experience is that visitors acquire knowledge of existing culture and respect that. I hope to set up a space for kids in Kerala that integrates with the system here. This place is gentle. I feel many possibilities and people are open to my ideas for Kochi.” Anubhuti is working in collaboration with OED Gallery in Kochi
