Some notes and thoughts on my last trip to Moultrie, Georgia.
Late one afternoon while channel surfing, a discussion on one of the T.V. channels caught my attention. A person was talking about how she recognized her “calling in life” and followed it up. It was the Oprah show where she was talking about the 'calling' of each person and said “that each person has his/her own unique calling” and asked the question to the audience “Do you know what your calling is?” and responded “I surely know what is mine!” I switched off the TV and thought to myself if what she was saying held some truth. A small percentage of people realize that there could be a potential revolution in cultural, social and intellectual spheres of society. Such thinking calls out to people to think and respond; it calls out to people to work out the challenges and negotiate their ways. In our consumerist society this is a radical thought and goes against the very grain of what consumerism has become and is based on, the predictable and marketable behavioral pattern of people. To obey but not to question! If this is what we are born to do, to obey but not to question then the whole idea of finding ones own unique voice is redundant.
I found it boring, disturbing and amusing when I traveled to a small town in Georgia and wondered why so many small towns look alike and why the landscape was so predictable right from New York to Moultrie, Georgia. The vastness of this country and abundance of its resources could not be so similar or could it be?
I have traveled to Moultrie, Georgia for the last couple of years to visit my brother and often wondered what people in this small town did to amuse themselves ? There were Walmarts and Home Depots and other big food chains; the downtown mom and pop stores were either closed or were a mere shadow of their former past. By spending more time there, a pattern began to emerge; that it was not all the same! There was a clear division, and one thing was clear that the area of grey in the black and white division was either too small to be visible easily or overlapped in the big alleys of the Walmarts or the big stores.
The Southern Federation's flag still rose at many places; segregation cast its shadows subtly than overtly! I visited the local Arts Centre and one of the members took me on a tour of the Centre and drove me around the little town. She explained the various local colloquialisms and then said,” Well there is still a 'White Boy' mentality in this town,” which she further explained by saying,”I am smarter than you”. The poor neighborhoods were predominantly inhabited with African Americans and she explained that drugs were a huge part of the economy of the neighborhood. There were schools which were not divided by their charter as black or white schools but the division nevertheless existed, the sports facilities were divided too and so were other facilities. Then she said that the Arts Centre was consciously trying to bridge that gap and run 'special education' programs, but she also said that the mix of black and white is limited and so there is hardly any grey.
Grey or no grey there were hardly any programs which aimed at bridging these ‘not so visible yet so apparent’ gaps; these gaps were not only racial but also economical and social. The Special Education program was only one where the boys and girls from different neighborhoods came up to the Arts Centre. All this seemed quite familiar to me, the racial segregation, the economic difference, the elite majority vs. the suppressed minority. Growing up in India makes you aware about these differences, you see their starkness everyday!. There is a clear divide based on religion, caste, economic and social standing. There are assumptions and preconceived notions about people from different castes and the opportunities are unequal. Each person in the society is caste into a certain mould dictated by his ancestral profession or prehistoric mindsets.
The government recently introduced a reservation program where by people from castes, which were considered to be second class citizens could have some reservations in schools and colleges. This led to a huge outcry throughout the country; with numerous protests and students self immolating themselves in protest. The law passed amidst all this chaos but the differences which are rooted deep in the psyche, nurtured by generations still exist. And I don't know how long it will take to uproot them completely or break these societal moulds which restrict us from exploiting our full potential or seeking our ‘calling’.
If each society is made up of such divisions based on race, caste and religion then how do you move forward and step aside these divisions?
Art is a mystic medium through which one forgets oneself and gets lost in the realms of creation, it has the inherent quality of side stepping all the racial, social and economic divisions. A playful process of learning is at the very heart of Art.
This is when Sandarbh was being introduced to me by an old friend Chintan Upadhyay. He shared his experience with me about how he started this artist workshop/residency in a small village in Rajasthan where Art was not even being taught in schools earlier, and how after the start of the workshop in a couple of years Art has become an integral of part of the curriculum for schools in that district. The local people are taking this as something enjoyable; artists who were used to working in either their studios or in predetermined/project based residencies are actively participating in this unique concept every year.
Sandarbh broke certain conventions by bringing artists to a rural place and making them live together in the same environ for a certain period of time; and encouraging them to create public works of art which aroused the natural curiosity and imagination of the locals. It proved to be an amusing intervention in the on going life cycle of that small village; some curiosities turned out to be collaborations with the artists and some took the form of initiatives by the villagers themselves crafting ingenious creations of their own at the workshop. The spontaneous nature of the workshop proved difficult to start but once it did, it gave ample room for the artists and villagers to participate and fuse in it on their own, without any baggage of what is 'Art' and what is not. Without bringing the whole intellectual discourse of contemporary time and site based Art into Context, Sandarbh started living it. It became an idea, which people could live and breathe, and participate in a playful manner; and in the process form new ideas.
Sandarbh U.S. then became a natural outcome. An artist call was put out and an understanding with the Moultrie Arts Centre formed, where by all the participating artists would be able to lodge and make use of the various facilities of Arts Centre for 10 days.
Ten days seemed appropriate since this was going to be the first workshop/residency and everyone would be still getting familiar with the area and the idea so a shorter duration seemed more viable. Once there is more acceptance and familiarity, we can consider a longer time frame for the residency. We got more responses then we had anticipated; considering we were not paying for any travel or material cost to any of the artists and each artist was being encouraged to use the local materials, materials they may find in and around the town.
Therefore we are extremely happy and proud to announce the name of the Participating Artists for first Sandarbh U.S. residency:
- Alvaro Verduzcos (Mexico City, Mexico)
- Christy Speakman (New Orleans, U.S.A)
- Sarah Olson (New York, U.S.A)
- Sarah Rahbar (Tehran,Iran,; New York,U.S.A)
- Abby Manock (New York, New York)
- Anindita Dutta (Chicago, USA)
- Swati Khurana (New York, New York)
- Jaishri Abhichandani (New York, New York)
- Chintan Upadhyay (Mumbai, India)
- Ivan Smith (U.K)
- Vijay Sekhon (New York, U.S.A)
