Hyderabad, Jan 7: The 11th
Krishnakriti Festival got off to a start here Wednesday evening with insightful
lectures on art and a movie that threw light on a social practice of a tribal community
from the country’s Northeast.
The inaugural session at
Kalakriti Art Gallery in Banjara Hills also saw conferment of the 2014
Kalakriti Award for Achievement and Excellence to the Decentralised Cotton Yarn
Trust (DCYT) for its efforts to resolve crucial issues facing the handloom
industry by including spinners, dyers, weavers, farmers and ginners in a
collective working environment.
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| Artist Laxman Aelay paints his signature on canvas at the inauguration of Krishnakriti Annual Festival of Art & Culture at Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad, o |
In the presence of
Krishnakriti Foundation Managing Trustee Prshant Lahoti, veteran actor Shankar
Melkote handed over the award to Uzramma who heads the decade-old DCYT which
seeks to revive a once-robust industry that embraced local culture and customs
while celebrating nature. Author and political scientist Jyotirmay Sharma
presented a memento to Uzramma.
The
five-day festival ending on January 11 features top-notch dance, music, cinema
and painting alongside talks, seminars and workshops. Being held in six venues
of Hyderabad, Secunderabad and Cyberabad, the programmes are free for the
public. The January 7-11 event is conducting a major art camp simultaneously,
the proceeds of which will go for charity.
Fifteen artists at the camp and some speakers at the Krishnakriti
festival painted their signatures — some with fancy images — on a white canvas
on the stage at the opening session. Also, a short film on four winners of
Kalakriti Award for Achievement and Excellence was screened.
Mr Lahoti said the
proceeds from an auction at the art camp would go in the form of scholarships
to the education of deserving and needy young art students and budding artists
from across India. “Our philanthropy reaches to students through institutions
in Hyderabad, Baroda, Santiniketan, Delhi and Bangalore,” he noted.
Ms Uzramma, in her speech,
said 2005-founded DCYT’s mission has been to replace the capital-intensive
mass-production mode of cotton yard production with small-scale localised
yarn-making, compatible with the small scale of cotton farming and
hand-weaving.
“We see the indigenous
cotton textile as a low-carbon and clean industry for which India can earn
international credit for emission reduction,” she added.
The function was followed
by two talks: ‘Negotiating the World with
Rabindranath Tagore’ (by art historian R Siva Kumar) and ‘Understanding Origin
of Art’ (by ontologist Navjyoti Singh).
Later in the evening, a film on the hand-painted shawls of Ao Naga
tribal men was screened at Annapurna International School of Film & Media.
This was followed by an interaction between the audience and Ruchika Negi,
Delhi-based director of the 52-minute movie ‘Every Time You Tell A Story’,
which narrates an over-the-centuries change in profile of Tsungkotepsu, the
traditional head-hunter’s shawl, which used to be an honour for the Ao Nagas
tribesmen and is now a standardized product available in the market.
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| Uzramma of Decentralised Cotton Yarn Trust receives from actor Shankar Malkote the 2014 Kalakriti Award for Achievement and Excellence, instituted by Krishnak |
On Thursday, classical danseuse Mallika Sarabhai and her troupe
will present ‘Sampradayam’ at Shilpa Kala Vedika in the evening.
In the afternoon (3.30 pm) at L V Prasad Eye Institute, poet Ashok
Vajpeyi will speak on artist S H Raza, while scholar Nirmala Biluka will speak
on narrative scroll painting traditions and their influence in contemporary art
practices.
At evening (6.30 pm), documentary film ‘Nine Months’ will be
staged at Annapurna International School of Film & Media, followed by audience
interaction with the documentary-maker Merajur Rehman Baruah.
The earlier recipients of the Kalakriti Award for Achievement and
Excellence are, besides Dr Melkote, cricketer V V S Laxman and medical expert
Dr Mahesh Joshi.
Founded in 2004 in memory of
art patron Krishnachandra B Lahoti, the foundation focuses on ‘art for
education’ encourages innovative work in visual arts. Since 2008, it has been
collaborating with French Embassy to send Indian students to that country for
annual residency programs.
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