The bizarre sight of a youth in quintessentially urbane attire, working on a laptop and wearing earphones, but seated on a bullock cart, passing through the main thoroughfares of the city on Sunday afternoon caught the attention of passers-by.
Many motorists stopped by for a closer look at the curious spectacle, and some even queried him on what he was up to. But the youth, balancing himself on a commode placed on the bullock cart, appeared seemingly engrossed in his work and indifferent to the attention he was drawing.
Meet Raghu Wodeyar, an artist and member of the 080:30 collective of ‘Loopholes’ project. Mr. Wodeyar set out on the bullock-drawn carriage from Town Hall to meet with other members of the collective in Commercial Street for a street performance.
The Bangalore collective, represented by Mr. Wodeyar, comprised of persons aged below 30 years, which explains the 080:30 (080 is Bangalore’s STD code while 30 is the maximum age of the members).
Each member of the collective, most of whom had studied at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat, had chosen their own art project to showcase various aspects and issues pertaining to Bangalore.
Hailing from Kagodu village in Shimoga district’s Sagar taluk, Mr Wodeyar said he conceived such a project as he was struck by the work pressure of his friends in IT companies in Bangalore. The project, he said, has been supported by the India Foundation of Arts.
“As part of my project, I chose to demonstrate the contrasting lifestyles in urban and rural parts of the country. In the cities, people take the stress of their work even to the toilets. In contrast, villagers engage themselves more in physical work”, said Mr. Wodeyar.
However, he was quick to add that he was not passing judgement on the lifestyles of either urban dwellers or village residents. “I am only trying to showcase the contrasts of their respective lifestyles through the medium of art,” he said.
The other art projects taken up by the collective include ‘Revisiting Bangalore of the 1500s’ through a performance by a theatre group Rangasiri around the Kempe Gowda Tower at Mekhri Circle.
The play was staged to throw light on the extent of expansion of the city for which the four watch towers were the original boundaries.
