M.
Santhamani's installation, 'Backbone', at the Kochi Muziris Biennale,
resembles the spinal cord, and is a metaphor of the presence of the
backbone in lives and societies
In
early 2010, the Bangalore-based artist, M. Santhamani, embarked on a
boat journey, down the Ganges, along with two other women friends.
She wanted to understand better the relation between nature and
human beings. The trio began at Allahabad and, for the next three
months, they travelled steadily, till they reached the Farakka
Barrage in West Bengal, 800 kms away. On the way they keenly
observed the life on the banks. And it was then that Santhamani had
an epiphany.
“Everything
that we do on the banks of the Ganga is being enacted in our lives,”
she says. “The journey gave an understanding of how people live
and cope with this river, not only economically and physically, but
mentally. Then I realised that the Ganga is a backbone of the
country. So many rivers, like the Indus and Brahmaputra are the
backbone of civilisations. Somewhere along, the concept of the
backbone came up.”
So
when she was invited to provide an art work for the Kochi Muziris
Bienalle, Santhamani decided to make a backbone. At her studio in
Bangalore, she used cinder and cement. Cinder is the waste material
after coal is burnt. “It is hard and robust,” she says.
The
end result, called 'Backbone', consists of 23 pieces. Each is shaped
like a vertebrae, and has been placed on the ground, at the Aspinwall
House, one after another, in the form of the spinal cord, with a
length of 73 feet. “The actual spinal cord has 33 links,” says
Santhamani. “But I did not want a too-obvious reference to the
human backbone.”
In
fact, when you look at the sculpture, you get a feeling of a flow,
like that of the river, near the site. “Yes, I wanted to give a
hint of the impact of water on Kerala's multiple cultures,” she
says.
It is
one of the more striking works at the Biennale. Many people come up
and touch it. Some caress it. A few lean on it. A happy Santhamani
says, “As an artist I don't want art to be only viewed. I want it
to be part of your tactile experience.”
But
not all agree. When a photo shoot is going on, with Santhamani
leaning on a vertebrae, a volunteer, who does not realise that she is
the artist, rushes up and admonishes her, “You are not supposed to
touch it.” Santhamani smiles enigmatically.
Throughout
her career, Santhamani has opted for unusual materials for her art,
but her preoccupations have been charcoal and paper. “They come
from different processes,” she says. “Wood is burnt to become
charcoal, while the pulp of wood is grinded to make paper. Both are
fragmented and fragile. So I felt that the material lends itself to
talk about issues like global warming, which is leaving the planet in
a fragile state.”
Her
attraction to paper occurred when, in 1991, following her MA in
painting from MS University in Baroda, she went to Glasgow and worked
with Jacki Perry, one of Europe's foremost artist papermakers. When
she returned she began sculpting things with paper.
“I
wanted to use delicate materials and talk about strengths,” she
says. Santhamani placed photos, textiles, fibre and charcoal into
the paper installations, which were at a height of 8 and 10 feet. “I
just tried to push the scope of paper,” she says. “The Japanese
can build a house with paper. So, we have no idea of how strong
paper can be.”
Today,
her work has been displayed at Miami, Paris, London, Tel Aviv and
Singapore. Asked the difference in the audience reactions in the
East and the West, Santhamani says, “The West embraces
experimentation quickly. They give importance to what is new and
want to look at the possibilities of whether they can take it
further. We are slow in this aspect.”
But
the awareness of art is speeding up. At Fort Kochi, when she tells a
tea-seller that she is an artist, he says, “Last year I could not
make it to the Bienalle, but this year I want to make sure I see all
the art works.”
(Sunday Magazine, The New Indian Express, South India and Delhi)
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