: Following in the wake of an art awakening, triggered by the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, has come a novel idea born from the ‘cross-pollination’ of art forms.
Poetry installation, an interdisciplinary work of art where poetry is wedded to sculpture opened at the Durbar Hall in the city on Tuesday.
The arts have become synonymous with entertainment only in the last 150 years or so. Before that it educated people and critiqued dominant narratives, dancer and social activist Mallika Sarabhai, who inaugurated the show, said.
However, the advent of a capitalist culture, characterised by freebies and awards for artists, made art a means of entertainment. Ms. Sarabhai said the last four decades or so had seen artists and the media becoming advertisers and hagiographers of governments. Artists receded into the realm of safety and became unapologetically uncritical.
Citing the poems of Ajeesh Dasan ( Deseeya Mrugam ) and S. Kalesh ( Shabda Mahasamudram ) based on which cine director Vinod Krishna has designed two sculptors, she said while one work powerfully captures loss of voice, the other speaks about deafening by noise. How the authority denudes you of key abilities essential for a happy life is what they have shown, she said, adding it is important for the arts to 'cross-pollinate'.
She asked Biennale director Bose Krishnamachari to focus more on multidisciplinary art and performing arts in the next edition of the Biennale.
M.A. Baby, MLA, said the times we live in warrant artists to be articulate and viewers to have an equally dynamic discourse on society. When an artist or art enthusiast approaches a work seriously, he finds the need to respond to the injustices in society. Deputy Mayor Bhadra and Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha leader CK Janu spoke.
Earlier, Vinod Krishna said the whole idea of the show is to offer resistance to suppression of free expression witnessed by the the present times. The project, on show till June 27, was conceived and designed by P. Raveendranath.
