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Friday, March 25, 2011

Resuscitating Creativity

editorial:
There is an exhibition of art installations underway in the heart of Gangtok. Slightly further away, a painters’ workshop and an art appreciation workshop plays with paints and canvas. Rachna Books has been courageously making space for artistic expressions even as it battles on to build an appetite for books in an otherwise DPR-obsessed Gangtok. At another end of town, EchoStreams, a community of artists and designers chip away to inject some aesthetic professionalism into how Sikkim sees and presents itself. A clutch of poets have been penning some soul-stirring works. Writer groups and informed audiences of the performing arts have also been actively engaging in other parts of the State even if their works are not reaching out to a larger audience.
These are recent developments, some, still works in process, but they warm the heart with their earnestness to resuscitate an appreciation for creative expression in Sikkim.
Taking recourse to a stereotype might be inappropriate here, but it needs mentioning that people from the hills are recognised as having an inherent aptitude for the arts. From music to acting to painting, the skills are obvious among the young, as is obvious from the near professional quality of the plays and musicals they put up, the dexterity they display in the art class and the vocal ranges they astound with at rock concerts whenever they happen. It is thus ironic that even as we break our backs and invest crores in trying to infuse a scientific temper in them, we deny them a chance to allow their intrinsic talents to grow beyond a hobby. This is not to say that formal education or the world of theorems and calculus is beyond the aptitude of the young here, but an argument to suggest that even as concerted efforts are invested to inspire them towards these subjects, the equally important aspect of refining the flair for the arts is ignored. When one says that the young are denied the chance to flourish in the arts, the reference is to the options offered to them by way of exposure and experience. Isn’t it incongruous that a Hill State that has limited options for irrigation, or even fisheries for that matter, has entire arms of the administration devoted to these pursuits, but does not have a single art gallery to inspire and educate its youth in a field that they are believed to have an inborn aptitude for? When it comes to the performing arts, at least the reality-TV craze has inspired many imitations here. The splurge of film productions has also made space for more talent, but whether this can be sustained will depend on box office verdicts. Also, a State bank-rolling so many film productions has not hosted a single film-festival thus far. You get the drift.
It is in light of these realities that the initiatives which this piece started out by celebrating are so welcome. At the risk of over-reaching, one would want to see these developments as powering a trend which will astound Sikkim and the world at large with some path-breaking creativity. This hope draws strength from the journey one has seen the architects take. This profession, barely two generations old in Sikkim, stands as a good example of the desirability of directing art to be honed at professional courses. Projects touched by the younger architects stun with their graceful blend of aesthetics and functionality, even when working with soulless concrete. Sikkim’s palette of professionally groomed and passionately original artists has grown in recent years. Here’s to looking forward to what they unleash in the near future...

7 comments:

  1. the editorial rightly revels in the fact that there is some art happening in sikkim (actually gangtok).
    however no mention is made about the quality, the content and the vision of that so called art.
    most art in sikkim (if you can call that art) has no organic root, no political message, and certainly none of the subversiveness that makes real art relevant and freeing.
    what it has going for it is a certain standard of slickness, which training and exposure makes inevitable. this is what the editorial means by 'near professional quality' of music and plays.
    even photographs (simplified to the level of absurdity by digitization of the medium) look no 'better' than desktop themes or screen savers.
    the reason why this is so is apparent in the ignorance about the art that underpins the message of the editorial.
    the editorial seems to suggest that art can be fostered by statist intervention through creation of art schools, by pumping money etc.
    he also seems to dangerously view art as an alternative to other 'professions'....
    what the author doesn't get it is that true art is none of that.
    the rash of exhibitions that has been unleashed upon gangtok is perhaps a natural corollary of the internet age, where mediocrity meets narcissism.
    the temptation to seek the instant gratification that comes from the congratulatory backslapping by culturally ignorant dilettantes seems to have too much of a good thing for local artists to resist...
    anyway thanks for having me here....

    ReplyDelete
  2. why so angry? is it that sad, bad for u to be mad?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Subvert Reality,
    Read
    Anonymous 1.

    Get the drift?

    Anonymus3.

    ReplyDelete
  4. this is anonymous 1

    take the installation for example.
    why focus on the 'artistically mangled wreck' of a car?
    ...
    .. because, given the current level empathy prevalent in Gangtok, the focal point of an accident is THE VEHICLE...
    ...
    it's not:
    (i) the injured, the maimed and the dead
    (ii) the paradox that one of the most policed traffic in the country is also the most accident prone...

    if that was so wouldn't that sensitivity/sensibility be reflected in the ART and of course the EDITORIAL....

    thanks for having me here...

    ReplyDelete
  5. HAIL ANNONYMOUS 1..!! GET THE DRIFT ???? WE NEED THE SHIFT !!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. if you get the F out...
    SHIFT = SHIT...
    anyway even in sikkim SHIT happens...

    anonymous 1

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's evident is that while there's no room for more cars in Sikkim, there's even less room for criticism, even of the mild and constructive variety above, one that triggered the unnecessary vituperation in the last post. Intolerance and a lack of self-reflexivity are the characteristics that have marked not just the last generation of Sikkimese but even the present one.
    I'd say: listen carefully, he's demanding higher standards of you.

    ReplyDelete

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