Cities are like highways – that’s an oxymoron of sorts. Like highways that insulate us from the sights, sounds, language and culture of the villages and districts we pass through, city keeps us connected only to chaotic traffic and overcrowded malls that makes cultures uniformly global and monolithic. It was in the absence of highways that we discovered that quaint canteen dishing out the most divine Maddur vada, tucked into a bylane of Maddur. Many different ways of life, tastes and dialects were there to see even in a city like Bangalore until two decades ago. Bangalore, now a demonic being, leaves with you a deep sense of alienation, both for a native and migrant. The native has lost his home that lives only in his memory, and the migrant cannot grapple with a city that changes with every sunrise.
India Foundation for The Arts has embarked on a project that will re-envision the city and its subsumed cultures; tapping into its chaotic energies. Arundhathi Ghosh, Executive Director IFA, speaks about Project 560 – its dreams and ambitions.
I’m primarily surprised that an organisation like IFA became interested in a local, city project – Project 560. How did it happen?
It’s an old idea in terms of its genesis. There are three strands that led to it. India Foundation for The Arts had set up a Theatre Infrastructure Cell (TIC) in partnership with the Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust, with the objective of providing a facilitative environment for the performing arts. For this project, we worked on the infrastructure that was available for theatre in four states – Manipur, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra. Condition of auditoriums, equipment they had etc. constituted our primary research. We also spoke to theatre people asking them what their problems with auditoriums were, so on and so forth. By the end of this project, we realised that most practitioners were saying, “We have stopped going to the auditoriums because they are in such poor condition. We are creating spaces where we can do the work we like.” Artistes all over have begun to look for spaces beyond the proscenium.
We have been around for 20 years in Bangalore and feel we have not paid attention to home at all. We have a national profile, but have absolutely no relationship with the city. Most local artistes and writers feel we are too elitist and have so sense of local language and culture.
As we set ourselves on an introspective journey, we felt rootless, and ironically, while we do so much for the arts, we have no connection with the city’s artistic community. Without losing sight of our purpose, and without resorting to a quota system, we felt we have to join hands and support regional artistes.
As we thought about all this, we landed at the doorstep of Project 560. The city has to be our site and material. Through the cultural route, questions and conflicts had to be addressed. In the last ten years, cities, world over, have become new energy spaces. Analysing and imagining the city has to be done in new ways. For instance, what I found very engaging was the diverse responses that were coming. Sampurna Chatterjee writes a collection of poems, The City is a Beast. Sarai embarks on a City as Studio project. So there were all kinds of engagements with the city, tying up yesterdays and tomorrows. When IFA began to think of a project with the city, we wanted to address the question of how to map a city culturally? Our project took off in 2014 and involved several artistes, not all of them native to the city. The responses were encouraging, but at the same time also a learning pitch for us. For about three to five years we want to concentrate on just one city. Last year we made 10 grants, but this year we will make six and each grantee gets Rs. 1.5 lakh. It will culminate in a festival in December.
Your curated walks is a new inclusion…
Many of us living in cities belong to different places, but we all, in a sense, belong to the city we live in. Out life is invested in the city, therefore we have to know about it, and we do want to know about it. That is one of the reasons to have these walks.
The other interesting thing that happened last year was that citizens felt compelled to walk up to us and tell us stories about their locality, their road and many of them were so unusual -- things that you wouldn’t find in a book on Bangalore perhaps. We thought we should give an opportunity to people to tell
stories of their city and therefore included curated walks. Anyone can conduct them – visual artistes, writers, magicians, and there is no restriction on them to be Bangaloreans.
Many festivals take place, especially in a culturally vibrant city like Bangalore. Do you think communities get involved, especially where there is a huge migrant population? What is it that comes back to IFA?
Corporates come and go. But it is the community that is a constant. One metaphor that comes to my mind constantly is that of the rath yatra. There are people who start pulling the rath and there is a community that is watching it. But slowly these distinctions merge and we don’t know who the rath puller is and who the spectator is?
Can we build communities differently?
This is an opportunity for artistes to work with the city as material. We from our end have a deep desire to build a collaborative living. Can artistes become dreamers who can change the city?
The city has to get new eyes. Since it is impacting our lives constantly, we need to ask what our commitment to the city is. I feel migrants take a lot from the city and give it nothing in return. They use it and go away.
We have to relook at our relationship with the city, its culture, its language and its people. All this comes back to IFA – a re-imagined city, and a repository of experiences. I guess the process is more important than success.
Do you thing a city can be re-imagined only through culture?
What really irritates me is that the only parameters used in any kind of discussion are economic. Culture is never on the table. They brought down every single flour mill in Mumbai.
Why did they build only malls, but not even one cultural centre? We are hoping that we will be able push the political through the cultural. Changes in governance have to happen with changes in citizenship. Our Mall Wall last year was one such endeavour. IFA believes in a multiplicity of voices. It is a space for different voices and ideas. IFA wishes to be the integrator that makes connections between several kinds of expressions.
The tangible part of Project 560 is before us. But the intangible – the footprints that it leaves behind – is equally important. Has last year’s endeavour impacted citizen outlook?
It is very early, but I think it is very important. We want to go back and ask people, but we will do it after three years. I think we have to factor it into our very project vision. I hope we will be able to kick in the “city feeling” in everyone, that is to remain committed at least as long as you stay in it.
