Kalaghoda- A festival of art, music, dance, and everything else inbetween.2

This is a continuation of my post regarding Kalaghoda and covers two of my favorite things to do at the festival! Handicrafts and art installations! The festival had its finale on the 13th of February.

Madhubani painting stall

I love to go shopping or window shopping if you will at all the tempting handicraft stalls. Here all the folk artists and artisans working in the traditional craft styles display their wares, everything from traditional folk paintings to silver jewelry to hand dyed organic cotton fabrics, bags and purses to sculptures . Each year I make it a point to carry a full wallet, and buy at least some of my favorite things. Till date a list of my shopping includes A Tanjore painting, Kolhapuri chappals. vegetable dyed organic cotton, silver earrings, brass casted animals and I could go one for quite a bit!!

©Meghna Loke " I'll poke you" installation

But this year, apart from the handicraft stalls what caught my eye was the amazing array of art installations, while there are usually about 10 or 15 this year it seemed liked there were twice the number, and not just the quantity but the amazing ideas behind the art installations. There were of course the artist versions of the 'Kalaghoda' created in as many different media from photographs two found objects to fibre glass, depending upon the artist's vision. There were two art installations that truly caught my interest and both were interactive in nature and actually depended upon the intereaction of the audience for their completion. One was done by an artist who had suffered from back pain for a better part of a decade and had decided to use this pain as the basis of her work, The artist Meghna Loke had placed pins in a small vessel in front of the installation and encouraged the viewer to become a participant in her work and her pain by poking what was actually body cast of the artist done in sticky tape lying upon a series of MRI scans of her back taken over a period of nine years. By the process of poking her body, the viewer was encouraged to let out hidden thoughts, words and literally 'poke one' so as to prove their point. The artist made a thought provoking point in that she used tape as her medium so as to create a wrapped and stifling mummified feeling that intense pain can create, also the translucency of the tape reminds us that pain is in fact invisible thus doubted and questioned.

© Aditi Dikshit and Divya Aggarwal  'Wahts yours is mine'

The second installation that caught my attention was 'Whats yours is mine' by Aditi Dikshit and Divya Aggarwal. These two artists had created a tree with all kinds of objects hanging from it. The artists were very interested in studying the human psyche of being happy when getting something for free, the installation revolved around the idea of encouraging the viewer to take an object from the tree(without any charges) with the condition that they must leave behind something of their own.! To me it also symbolized something that we do on a daily basis, sharing with complete strangers, when we leave information on the world wide web we have no clue who is going to use it or benefit from it , while we do the same when we turn to the internet for resources left there by complete strangers! What do both of these installations say to you, do they come across exactly as the artist meant it or do they speak differently to you? After all is not art also about what questions or emotions it raises in you apart from what the artist has expressed? The 'Whats yours is mine' tree spoke to me, do these or any other art works speak to you? would love to hear about such experiences.