From the tiniest form of life to dinosaurs to man and his cities. A narrative of human evolution has been recreated on the compound wall of Government Lower Primary School, Cotton Hill, in a way that it reaches across to young children.
The brainchild of Suvarna Bijoy, a student of Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at Government College for Fine Arts, the wall painting underscores the message of nature conservation and the responsibility to protect it.
“It is both conceptual and symbolic. How organisms evolved into man and how his world developed, and how each child of this school is equipped to protect nature - this is what we attempted to convey,” she says. The experience of transforming the wall to tell the story of evolution in a way that does not stick to Darwin’s theory or to that in religious discourse was a wonderful experience, not least because of the encouragement from the common man, says Suvarna.
All of it is design-oriented, says Suvarna. “Small children see things differently. They are not yet fully involved in the study of science, though they do wonder about it. So, we decided to introduce them to evolution through the means of design.”
A group of eight artists — Suvarna, Sabitha K., Bijoy Balachandran, Akhil V., Ananthu Krishnan, Ananda Krishna V. Jikky Christopher, and Abhilash M. — worked day and night over a period of 25 days to produce the work, which is the result of serious study of different time periods and the living beings in those.
The painting straddles a wall on either side of the school gate — one side shows the smallest form of life in sea and how various other life forms evolved to survive both on land and in water. The other side shows how various forms evolved on land. The captions too reflect it.
Suvarna calls it the journey from simplicity to a complicated life that ends in man and the “circus” of cities with their tall skyrises. “The painting ends with the message that protecting the Earth is our need,” she says.
Suvarna’s MFA required her to do a public art project, and she approached the school which mentioned that such a project was on the cards. After talks with her college, it was decided to entrust Suvarna who has won a Lalithakala Akademi Award in 2007 and an award of the State Institute of Children’s Literature with the job. The rest of the the team was roped in by her husband, Bijoy.
Forest Minister K. Raju on Tuesday inaugurated Kaalachuvadakkal, the name given to the wall painting project, and expressed hope that it would be a model for other schools in the State.
