Social Art in the Public Realm

Attention:  Change of Venue:  Wednesday we will be on one of the small streets surrounding Commercial St., from 3-6 pm.

Days 4 and 5 have been eventful and exciting.  Thanks to Huda and Pushpi we now have the instructions and questions translated into Kannada and Hindi.

On Monday we set up near the flower stands inside Russell Market, an area infused with aromas, sounds of flowers being clipped, bright colors, and buzzing bees, and quite a lot of interest was generated in the project there.  In particular, a group of very sweet street kids who actually live on the roof of the market participated and even helped us pack up.  Ekta was very helpful translating to Tamil and Kannada to the kids, and Deepak helped translating interviews.  One young man told us about an area near Tannery Rd. called Hegde Nagar, which is a very dangerous place where he himself has seen two people murdered, and where there are many rapes as well.  He commented that the symbol for not wanting to go to this place should have been a knife, rather than a moon, which he considers to be sacred.  

Today we went to Shivajinagar Bus Station, where after 60 seconds of setting up we were told we needed a permit.  This began a wild goose chase in which we were sent to talk to many different station managers, and ended up having to request permission in Shanthi nagar at the central offices. This process took 2 hours, but we did actually obtain the permission, and proceeded to have a great intervention at the bus station.  Once again we were surrounded by very many curious men, and just a few women.  Some women did participate however, and one told us that the City Market is a place that is fine for women to go to during the day, but too dangerous at night.  

Here are a few photos taken by myself and by Elena Pereira.

-Liz

Documentation of Transformative Actions at http://www.creativeactions.com/BANGALORE_2008/index.html

In the first week of the collaborative, public exercises, one of many proposed interventions was conducted at Cubbon Park on Sunday January 18th. Along with students of Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology the artists invited and offered people to take part in transformative actions at a selected site in the park.

The students drew a map of Cubbon Park to invite and show the public their suggestions for a self-guided tour of creative expressions in public space. The map wasn’t really necessary for the public, cause people joined the transformative actions right away. Mostly men joined, cause they are the majority represented in public space, and women tend to keep back, and await allowance from their men to interact. In terms of the group’s working methods the Charter/Map was important in terms of coordinating and understanding our own actions taking place in the city as stage.

“Sunday afternoon we invited people by the rock and bamboo area to participate in braiding the space with colorful fabrics - Opening and transforming the site into a joyful space for connectedness across cultural and lingual barriers. Opening for conversations between the sexes. We invited people to tie ‘wishing’ bangels and bells onto the fabric lanes to make wishes for positive understanding and sensitivity between people. Everyone participating all at the same time made sound with the bangels and bells.
The intervention created a temporary space for new ways of dialogue between strangers in public space. The day finished with the participants going in female couples to the shady bamboo grove near the park entrance thus visualizing the necessity of a site for female lesbians too, as the site is already a spot for gays.”

One of the exercises carried out at the site on Friday 16 also included female students making a meditation sitting on the rocks in a circle, creating space for inner body-experiences, meditating on their personal imaginative animal. Afterwards they turned their bodies facing the surroundings looking out and started braiding each others’ hair two and two as an act of reclaiming public space in their own feminine way.

In performing these transformative actions, the participants wish to challenge the predominant ways in which the city is experienced partly due to cultural and religious conditioning.

In terms of having consistant value for the society in Bangalore the transformed site could have been used during Sunday evening and the following days for more transformative actions focusing on the sexual-self versus the religious/cultural gendered-self and having discussions with ngo-groups keeping the dialogue with the attracted public, which were mainly being men.

Other transformative actions that we talked about doing this Sunday, which could be great to do at another occasion:
- The girl students playing loud music from their mobile phones while hanging out near the trees and walking the area, thus taking over a usual male act in the park.
- Asking passing by women to write a note on where they feel fearful/joyful in public space in the day/night. They would then be asked to hang bangles and bells at this place as a ritual transformation from fear to joy.
- The student girls climbing and sitting in the trees, copying usual male acts.

The gathering of artists and students went on into other city interventions…experimenting with more methods in terms of creating “inclusive, creaitve, participatory spaces” in the public realm.
See the following posts…

Documentation of Transformative Actions at http://www.creativeactions.com/BANGALORE_2008/index.html

Attention: Change of Venue:  Monday, Bangalore´s Urban Fabric will be at Russell Market from 8:30-12:30

For the past three days, Pushpi, Huda, Elena and I (along with some helpers) have taken the embroidered map of Bangalore out to different public spaces.  First, Coles Park, then Sigma Mall, and today Cubbon Park.  In each one there have been many people who have participated, and even more who have been curious.  It has been a pleasant surprise to find that men love participating in this project…in fact they often seem absolutely comfortable interacting in the public space with something new.  Women have been a bit more reluctant, but perhaps this is because there is often a large crowd of men and boys surrounding the table.  Since we feel that perhaps this aspect is sometimes deterring women from participating, we are compensating by trying particularly hard to encourage women to participate.

There have already been quite a few interesting stories, which we´ll share with you on the day of presentations.  So far, probably the most popular questions that have been answered are : “What is the heart of Bangalore?”, “Where do you live?”, “Where is a place where you mourn the loss of trees in Bangalore?”, “Where is a peaceful place?”, and “What is a place that makes you very happy?”.  We don´t yet have enough responses to see patterns of places which provoke fear in people, however a couple of the places mentioned so far have been Outer Ring Road, and Shivajinagar Bus Depot.  It must be said however that the Bus Depot and surrounding area have also received the opposite comments, by people who feel very comfortable going there, people who have lived there for years, and even by a man who enjoys going to the bus station at night to enjoy the silence.

Many of our questions do not focus on fear and gender, however I think that being a group of women going out to the public space with this project is in itself something which creates situations and conversation about fear and gender. And certainly, we are experiencing everything that goes along with working in the public space. For example, today we enjoyed the participation of some school boys who proceeded to steal my mobile phone. Theft is definitely something that I have experienced before while working, but, a pleasant surprise, and something which I feel could only perhaps have happened in India, is that they came back and returned the phone (after Radha found them and talked to them about their CONSCIENCE).  It was quite a beautiful moment.

-Liz

Greetings to the participants of the project in Bangalore, from a cloud and windy Rhode Island, US.

Remembering my first visit to India in 2003 in search of “inner peace” at an ashram outside Bangalore. Finding my self pretty scared and distrustful when arriving at the central train station in the middle of the night. Was wondering why and realized that it probably would have been the same anywhere at that time of night in a new place. It was the feeling of being disconnected to the people and the space around me that created this fear in me, not feeling like I belonged there. If I felt like one with all, would there be no fear in me anymore? And would I really want to be rid or all fear, or is a pinch of fear necessary to keep oneself alert and cautious enough to stay out of trouble. I guess it depends of the situation, if the feeling of fear is just prohibiting us or helping us. And is it the feeling of fear or the actual danger that is most essential? No matter if it is motivated or not, the feeling is there and it is real. So, how do we deal with it, how to overcome it? I’ve realized that this search for the feeling of connection and belongingness is something that most of my work revolves around, on a hopeless quest, trying to manifest through form, this longing which is formless.

Wanted to cite some words on “fear” from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (in who’s Ashram I was staying on my first visit).

“Because fear is love standing upside down, everything that can be interpreted with love can also be interpreted with fear. A child clinging to his mother can be understood in both ways – the child clings out of love or out of fear.”
“Fear is an impression of the past reflecting the future of the present. When people delay fear, they become egocentric; when they recognize and accept fear, they go beyond it – they become free from it.”
“Total lack of fear is possible only in utter chaos or in outmost orderliness. Neither a saint nor a fool has fear, but everywhere in between there is fear. Fear is essential to preserve orderliness in the world. It is a primal instinct.”

Students of Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology collaborate with performance artist Karoline H. Larsen to act out situations associated with fear. Blogged by the students themselves here:
http://fearandgender.blogspot.com/2009/01/acting-out-situations-associated-with.html

Read the daily minutes by theatre group Maraa.

Participants discuss personal perceptions of the public space. Work proposals for artistic engagement in public space are discussed. Show of interest in collaborating across proposals by visual and performance artists introduces synergies across formats.

(The visual in the background is an exhibition set-up in progress. Archana Prasad, whose work is exhibited, is an artist-participant for the Fear and Gender conversations in the city.)

Read the daily minutes by theatre group Maraa.

Hello to all! It was great meeting all of you.  We have posted a schedule for the project “Bangalore´s Urban Fabric” on the “Schedule” page.  Please check it if you want to come by and stitch your opinions into the map, or just to see what we are doing. All are welcome!  We would love to have everyone´s participation.  The more the merrier, and the more local interaction on the map, the better!

Please call Liz if you are interested:  9743821759

Thanks! - Liz, Pushpi, Huda, and Elena