Khoj Studios at Khirkee Extension brought together artists from India, South Africa, Nigeria and North America to deliberate and create new work on cultural identity in a group show titled Coriolis Effect: Migration and Memory. By Saritha Saraswathy Balan
As we step into Khirkee Extension to watch Coriolis Effect, we are taken to a festive mood where art in different forms comes in tandem to speak for cultural unity.
Connect with the masses is the core idea of the exhibition. The works urge for equality that eliminates the barriers which come from skin and race. Khoj Studios brought together seven artists from South Africa, Nigeria, North America and India to deliberate and create new work on the idea of migration, memory and cultural identity. They lived at Khirkee Extension in South Delhi, a hub for artists and foreigners living in India, for six weeks to come out with works for the group show that was held on Thursday. It sought to activate the relationships- socio, economic and cultural between the countries.
Indo-Caribbean artist Andrew Ananda Voogel has centred his work around the indentured labour trade from India to the Caribbean region. A descendent of the Jahajis of Guyana, a community whose ancestors were Indian indentured workers brought to the Caribbean as plantation labourers in the early 19th century, he says that the family was 'stolen' from India during the British colonial rule. The artist who has all the typical features of a foreigner, be the skin, the eyes and the accent, says that even he was subjected to racial discrimination.
Voogel's medium of art at Coriolis Effect was ‘fabric’ as he feels in India, textile is phenomenal. “The masses can easily link to the fabric”, he says. The works in vivid colours made of ethnic Indian fabric symbolise cultural diversity and the importance of variety. Dekho magar pyar se (See, but with love), says one of his works. “These fabrics are chosen from various places in Delhi and I did a lot of research to make them diverse”, he adds.
Malini Kochupillai, a Delhi-based photographer, created a newspaper with the mast head ‘Khirkee Voice’ with stories of artistic brilliance and unity among the artists. “I chose newspaper as the medium because many people from the lower class, women and children do not have access to internet. While the print medium is on the point of death in the West, it is still a part of Indians’ daily life. I view newspaper as a physical object that survives for long. Newspaper is recycled, becomes peanut packets, many other things, and lives long. I wanted to create an art work that is not intimidating. Newspaper is familiar to the masses”, says Kochupillai.
She distributed 1,000 copies of ‘Khirkee Voice’ in Khrikee extension and neighbouring areas through newspaper agents. Printed in Hindi and English, Kochupillai wanted to give a local touch to her art work. “For all the people and especially for migrants, there is a certain way to deal with negativity, like learning the local language. When foreigners living in India speak Hindi, the local people easily connect with them,” she says.
Joao Orecchia from Johannesburg in South Africa is an artist who investigates the materiality of sound. “Sound chose me, I did not chose it. It is my medium, my material”, he says. On migration he says, “It is about movement and emotion. People move voluntarily or involuntarily. When you are an outsider, you need to observe before you speak as you do not know how people will understand you. But one enjoys freedom as well while standing apart as an outsider, the freedom to ask questions”, he says. He also collected the materials, car horns and copper bowls, for his installation from Delhi.
Chibuik Uzoma from Nigeria works with painting and photography. His works include 22 mixed media drawings titled Rose Garden which are created like fragile pieces of “hope for a better future”. In the works, he himself is portrayed as an outsider in a transit phase. “I am here, I am not here is how I am portrayed in the works”, Chibuik says. He is seen in the works as a person moving in Delhi where he is advised to be friendly, to respect women and to be careful. “Migration is a complex story. People move for different reasons. They migrate more voluntarily than the other way. I stayed in Vienna for three months where I had to face light incidents of discrimination. I did not pay much attention to the racist activities around me”, Uzoma says.
Bangalore-based photographer Mahesh Shantaram's photographs, that captured intimate moments in the lives of the African community living in India , aim to bring into focus subjects of racial bias and discrimination. “In early February this year, I woke up to the news of a mob attack on a Tanzanian student in Bangalore which made me curious about Africans living in India”, he says. An independent documentary photographer, Shantaram's collection of 10 photographs at the show is titled ‘looking at You looking at Me: The African Portraits’.
Swati Janu, a community architect based in Delhi, has been operating a ‘phone recharge shop’ in the congested by lanes of Khirkee Extension where she exchanges songs and videos of popular Hindi and vernacular cinema for free with those who let her download what they have on their own phone’s memory card.
“For migrant communities, communication forms a key link to their native place, be it through daily phone calls or annual visits. The connections between the two ends of the migration continuum are now increasingly becoming digital. My project aims to probe deeper into the digital patterns of the diverse migrant communities at Khirkee through the form of a local phone recharge store”, she says.
liza Grobler from Cape Town, South Africa titled her work at the show as ‘Greener Pastures’. She has created a six-metre-high thread-based interactive, sculptural work that will be suspended in the Khoj courtyard. She has also planted 200 pods of grass, a mix of British lawn and Indian grass, that will be put in auto-rickshaws allowing the grass to be taken all over the city. “I seek to show connections. Connections between places”, she says.
