Kochi, Mar 28: The Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) concluded its famed “History Now” and “Let’s Talk” series at the 108-day exhibition by triggering thoughts about art as a positive intervention in learning process and sharing the aesthetic journey of the only artist who figured in both editions of the country’s only biennale by far.
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| Scholar Shaji Jacob speaking on Malayalam novel “Sugandhi Enna Andal Devanayaki” by T D Ramakrishnan (sitting) at a book-reading session in Aspinwall House on Friday evening as part of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. The others seen are translator Priya S Nair and researcher Arya. |
Valsan Koorma Kolleri, whose works ‘No Death’ and ‘How Goes the Enemy’ captured public imagination at the 2012 and ongoing KMB respectively, said it was “not money but attitude of the organizers and artists” that helped India host both the biennales in this city also known for its constant trysts with contemporaneity.
“I had told the top organizers here last time that you need to host a second edition of it to be really called biennale—else I’ll have to call it ‘Mono-le’,” he recalled in the final Let’s Talk show Friday evening, amid peals of laughter from the audience at the main Aspinwall House venue. “Now that we got it, this biennale will continue for long.”
Reeling out 200-odd visuals of select sculptures, sketches and paintings he did in the past four decades, the 62-year-old artist from North Malabar said a bit of each artwork could always leave the viewer “hidden, unsaid or unintelligible” to retain the curiosity quotient. In any case, fine art should be a compulsory subject at the primary education in India,” he added.
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| Sculptor-painter Valsan Koorma Kolleri addressing the final "Let's Talk" session of Kochi-Muziris Biennale at Aspinwall Pavilion in Fort Kochi on Friday evening. |
“I practice art to equip myself enjoy others’ works. It also helps me keep fit—mentally and physically,” maintained Valsan, who has set up a studio and art institute at his native Pattiam near Kannur, having studied at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris,Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai.
He said KMB’14, which is ending on Sunday, gave him the “luxury” of interacting with a cosmopolitan crowd in Kochi for the past six months of his stay. “I could have put up my installations and left the place, but it would have deprived me of the pleasure of knowing more about the people here,” he added at the talk with biennale officials Riyas Komu and Jitish Kallat in the audience.
Earlier in the afternoon, Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) presented the details of its novel project ‘Vimaya’ being conceived in collaboration with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited.
Vimaya, which means exchange, facilitates designing of artifacts in such a way for creating mindful interaction through the use of ‘performative expressions’ in the context of an organisational transformation process, according to the session’s speakers that included TISS Centre for Social and Organnisational Leadership Chairperson Tata Dr P Vijayakumar and HPCL Deputy General Manager (Capacity Building) Dr Ashis Sen besides artist Pawan Tiwari.
An evening session saw the reading of T D Ramakrishnan’s recent novel “Sugandhi Enna Andal Devanayaki” by the author. Literature scholar Shaji Jacob, translator Priya S Nair and researcher Arya also spoke about the 2014 book that unfolds the travails of Sri Lankans with focus on the LTTE-era civil war in the island-nation.
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