This past weekend, I gifted myself a little getaway, running off to Kochi (blessedly only four hours by train from Coimbatore) for the Kochi Muziris Biennale. Every few exhibits, every few hundred metres, every few minutes, I'd find myself perched on a parapet, a footpath, a rock of some sort.
This past weekend, I wrote my way through the Biennale. I scrawled in a notebook that was falling apart, in handwriting that was near impossible to decipher, trying to make sure my hands kept up with my head. What lies below is an excerpt of these notes, cleaned up and spruced up for readability.
I climbed ladders today, in a skirt, to get into a huge kaleidoscope, a
swirling mass of colourful pieces of glass. I waded through water today, in a
skirt, all the while reading rhythmic free verse memorializing a dead Syrian
bo(d)y. I walked till my legs were numb today, in a skirt, in and out, in and
out, in and out.
A man lying down, lighting up through infrared heat sensors. Another
man, also lying down, gold beads popping out of his bellow button, critiquing
the ability to create and earn from thin air. A wall covered with picture from
an iPhone – ephemeral, useless except in the moment, except now memorialised
for eternity. Another wall covered with layers of butter paper, fluttering in
the wind as the artist adds layer after layer, commenting on complexity,
transparency, multiplicity. A third covered in a ten-metre digital picture
juxtaposing groups of giggling girls taking selfies against a medieval trading
Chinese scene (was it medieval trading? It was Chinese for sure…), talking of
the contrast with history and how far we’ve strayed from our roots.
Walls and walls and walls, pictures and paintings and posters. Wherever
you turn, there are walls, there are paintings, there is creation. Wherever you
turn, there is art.
A slightly longer version of these assortment of thoughts can be found here.
