A giant bell installation by Gigi Scaria shares the history of Kochi
Viewed from a distance, the giant metal bell on the placid seaside would appear like an installation that heralds the experimental spirit of the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB). This artwork at the fair share many stories like that of a traditional dock-work techniques of Khalasis in Kerala and a colonial-era fable about a weighty bell that sank in a European ship while headed for the Malabar Coast.
Chronicle of the Shores Foretold is a performance-based work of sculpture by artist Gigi Scaria. The artist talks about labour, religion and maritime trade that have been woven into the socio-cultural fabric of his native state.
The Delhi-based artist, Scaria, has made the small dock in a water-front venue of KMB, lending a real-time value to his artwork that is among the 100 main exhibits at the second edition of the biennale. Fixed in the backyard of Pepper House, an 18th-century Dutch-style complex, that had been a point of trade between India and foreign lands, the 2.5-tonne bell hoisted by bamboo poles finds its place today just furlongs opposite an International Container Transshipment Terminal which is hardly four years old.
Moulded and welded in Coimbatore of east-central Tamil Nadu, the bell, which is 13-feet tall and measures a diameter of 16-feet at the base, has the Arabian Sea water jutting out through a string of holes drilled into it. This, Scaria notes, is a symbol of the times that Kochi has passed through, narrative of the changes in its character owing to medieval invasions and new-age development among others.
The bell was installed by Mappila Khalasis from upstate Malabar. “They are one traditional community who have been largely unaffected by change of labour equations in the era we life in. I sought their help to install my work to highlight the value of labour in the present times,” says Scaria.