Israeli artist Achia Anzi shares his experience of migrating to India in his installations. He explains the concept of motion and ‘connection’ to Shrabasti Mallik
What would you do if you come across a world where everything is in utter disharmonyIJ This is exactly what Achia Anzi is trying to explore through his artworks. The Israeli artist looks at immigration as a “complex, complicated and traumatising experience.” In his works he brings out the issues of migrating to some other land. For this exhibition, The land of Nod, he draws from his own life experiences. Anzi migrated to India in 2002 and says that he is familiar with struggles one has to go through in getting used to the ways of a foreign land. His artworks speak volumes about the pangs of being dislocated.
“When I came to India I felt lost. Normally, in the process of migration, a huge gap is created in matters of both space and time. Every immigrant, somewhere deep inside, is always struggling to find a common ground, to hold onto a particular moment that is left behind. I am not speaking of my difficulties to begin with, these are my personal observations. I cannot speak of other people’s suffering and hardship because theirs might be different from mine,” he said.
It may come as a contradiction but the land of Nod, according to the Bible, is the place in East of Eden where Cain was exiled by God after he killed his brother Abel, whereas in Hebrew the word translates ‘to wander.’ “The land of Nod, according to poet Robert louis Stevenson, is also the land of dreams where he escapes to in his poem of the same name,” said the 35-year-old artist.
Every exhibit on display is an installation and they all seem to have a distinct voice of their own. There is an art piece made of several blocks of grill wielded together, lying on the ground with lCD lights attached beneath titled Nala. The idea is to represent the constant state of movement in today’s world. “The nala is a concept still found in most cities. That’s why I chose it because it denotes the movement of water,” Anzi explained.
The practice of placing simple geometrical pieces together comes from the concept of minimalistic art of the 60s and the 70s when they were first called 3D art. He added, “The idea was very modernist and artists like Carl Andre and Donald Judd popularised them. According to them art is not what it represent but is what it is. So I started playing with shapes and applied the same practice of playing with them but with great influence. What I am trying to express is that art does not highlight the present. It glorifies the absence of a particular thing.”
In what may be called the eye catcher of the exhibit are the six bunk beds which resembles that of a train. He pointed out, “Sleeper has the movement and the mobility that I speak about. The world is in constant motion and there are dreams which come in the still moments of life, like when you are asleep. And in a sleeper which is in a moving train, you have a feeling of grasping the dream and in the very next moment you can’t.”
The concept of movement is continued in the piece Barakhamba with 11 hollowed pillars placed together in a haphazard way behind a glass panel while one lies outside. He said, “It’s about the change in the landscape in the time of mobility. Now we see structures which are still and solid but there are movements. The pipe carries water so it is in itself, without being displaced, movement.”
One will also come across a marble milestone with the word Makom engraved on it. Makom in Hebrew stands for place. Through this, Anzi tries to explain the constant need to touch something concrete. “Migration can sometimes be disturbing and can give the feeling of being uprooted. In those times there is always a sense of wanting to hold onto a place. You cannot touch a place; you can only talk about it from a distance.
The problem with nationalist project in general is that you can never touch the ground; you are always standing at a distance. You can have a sense of a place is only from a distance,” he said. Similarly with a few hanging hand rails placed at a higher level Anzi gives out the impression of every immigrant’s desire to hold onto a place in the middle. He pointed out, “In all this mobility we are trying to get a grip, which is impossible. In the process of immigration we are all trying to settle and find a place of our own.”
All the works on exhibit are open to interpretation because the artist, who is also a visiting professor of Hebrew at JNU, feels that no work of art has a single interpretation. That is why while an electric chulha, automatically going on and off, on exhibit might seem like an ordinary object of necessity to an onlooker; to the artist it is a symbol of the fleeting hopes and desires of human life. He said, “I have tried to create this dreamy atmosphere, a dreamy way of experiencing India. It is a representation of something coming and going and it creates some reflective mood so you stop and notice. It can have several layers of meaning so I don’ want to fix it to any symbol.”
What would otherwise look like a dirty bath tub with oars attached to it, with little water often bubbling away, the artwork is an attempt to express sudden ripples of turmoil in life. “Because of this place of in-between, there is a certain confusion that I am constantly going through in the way that I sense time and space. So I visit old places I had seen when I was young and it is all in front of me in Israel. It is the anticipation of coming face to face with the unknown or the anxiety of whether or not you get to go back to the place you are from. For me, it is also the feeling of travelling in India, free from the core of the nation that I am familiar with, not really knowing where I am going,”he said.
The exhibition which continues till February 15 is full of surprises. One will come across a digital clock which shows different times. It might seem confusing but the artist explained, “It actually shows real time from some other place in the world, corresponding to Indian time.”