Delhi-based Malayali Gigi
Scaria’s work drills into history & myth
Kochi, Dec 15: Viewed from a distance and without
referencing local history or folklore, the giant metal bell on the placid
seaside would appear like an installation that simply heralds the experimental
spirit of the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB).
That impression could deepen as the visitor at
the 108-day extravaganza gets to know more about its themes and symbolisms that
range from extolling the traditional dock-work techniques of Khalasis in Kerala
to 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 which pools in hyperlink histories and
myths which artist Gigi Scaria has sought to liberally interpret about labour,
religion and maritime trade that have been woven into the socio-cultural fabric
of his native state.
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| Giji Scaria's _Chronicle of the Shores Foretold_at Pepper House |
As a Malayali based in Delhi for two decades,
41-year-old Scaria has made the small dock in a water-front venue of KMB’14,
lending a real-time value to his artwork that is among the 100 main exhibits at
the second edition of the biennale which casts 94 artists from 30 countries.
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 Trans-shipment 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 on the eve of KMB’14,
which began on December 12, 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,” notes Scaria, who has done his Masters in
Fine Arts from Jamia Milia University in the national capital. “I sought their
help in installing my work to also highlight the value of labour in the present
times defined by easy pleasure.”
Thus, last Thursday, Khalasis from Beypore Coast
off Kozhikode erected the bell with a crane—making it a performance by
septuagenarian dockworker Hameed A N A and his team.
“We are a community of contemporary relevance,”
points out Hameej, 77, noting that Khalasis were employed in the rescue
operations of Kerala’s 1988 Peruman railway tragedy, where they brought up
compartments that had sunk into the Ashtamudi Lake near Kollam after the train
plunged off a bridge, killing 105 passengers on July 8.
Today, ‘Chronicles of the Shore Foretold’ stands
against the backdrop of vibrant movements of the cranes at the container
terminal in tiny Vallarpadam Island. The backdrop also looks busy with
different kinds of ships and boats—both passenger and fishing—plying up and
down the sea.
Scaria, a native of Kothanellore off
Christian-dominated Kottayam, notes that the “bell-sinking myth” associated
with churches in his central Travancore belt has also contributed to his
installation. “Even today, there is this belief that the bell emerges annually
from the deep sea on the festival day, and tolls on its own,” he adds with a
smile.
Much like that ring, his biennale installation
(whose titled was inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘Chronicles of a Death
Foretold’) awakens dormant memories of a community—in fact, for people across
the world.
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