http://artkaravan.wordpress.com/

 Friday 26 March – Friday 2 April – Shimla – Stage 7
 Sunday 4 April – Sunday 11 April – Srinagar – Stage 8
 Monday 12 April – Sunday 18 April – Delhi – Stage 9

Perhaps, there are constantly shifting ‘interiors’ revolving around our collapsing ‘peripheries’. At the face of it ‘the core’, ‘the central’, or ‘the nucleus’ seems spreading its tentacles to appropriate the unmarked. At the face of it ‘ the fringe’, ‘the outskirt’ dream to metamorphose into the privileged, the marked. And since there are deep cross currents occurring underneath; it often becomes difficult to locate ‘the body’,’ the being’ in the present of us. The universal of this ‘us’ on our earth is already like a Karavan, inwardly moving from one end of the globe to another, and from one individual to another at micro level. Art is another exercise to realize this very Karavan, in reality, and in thought simultaneously.


So, if these two: ‘the Periphery’ and ‘the Core’, are adequately defining our respective presents , then almost involuntarily, most of us would see themselves located within the vicissitudes of peripherals, and not in the imagined cores.

So, the genesis of ‘this Periphery’ and ‘this Centre’ of ‘us’ is, perhaps, pregnant with a deep past inside its womb: a core which delivers ‘a periphery’ in continuum. This continuum as alloy of Art, Culture and Life can be experienced if we move through the corridors of ‘the other’. The possibilities to experience that are manifolds at the ‘outer edges’ than within the condensed ‘cores’. And if we yearn to “disseminate the sensible”, perhaps, we need to move from one edge to another, physically and even in thought.

At the Periphery, there are some earthy scents, some casually drawn boarder lines, some innocence which keeps on lingering between the lush foliage and the roofs made of baked tiles, or pieces of wood, or few bamboo sticks, or simply some soil and grass. The seemingly ‘concrete’ at the peripheries is tangible but passionate enough to keep itself oscillating between the old and the new. So, numerous peripherals are brimming with drives which manifest the order-disorder of our Karavan, inwardly.

The ever morphing of Periphery brings into its fold a fresh lot of unmarked, who are hastily churning their stocks of sensibilities with those which are easy to grasp. Their intervention only reinvigorates the nerve which programmes a fecund continuum.


Aesthetic praxis at PERIPHERY involves ethnic and gender bending, cultural intermarriages and constants, atypical and surprising power invasions. May be then, it is safer to say that the stagnant core is even worse than death. In short, we need a Karavan, of different ideas and of strangers moving on wheels of our time, camping and moving on, camping and moving one


In our world, cultural borders have moved to centre stage while the alleged mainstream is pushed to the margins, treated as exotic and unfamiliar, placing the audience member/viewer in the position of a “foreigner” or a “minority”. It sounds “heavy” but it is actually a lot of fun.

I quote Marcel Duchamp “Art is a game played by all the periods of all the times” In opposition to a Centre, various types of games , both ordinary and intensely profound, are already in vogue at the Periphery. The inclusiveness of The Karavan of cultural activists and artists are likely to pump the excluded vital back into the veins of ‘the centre’, But that can happens if we move through the Ourskirts as Karavan. We can always return to our core, but with a new outlook, with a new politics.

Peripherals are conglomerations of layered discursive spaces, which are potent enough to transform identities of the subjects which happen to be of any kind of inhabitants of our age old cultural practices. Peripherals is the name of a grease applied to the wheels of our thought to mobilises our obfuscated realities.


Peripherals are about the legacy of the fear of the other. Ad nauseam within peripherals is the gaze of the  hub, the core, the interior, the walled, the nucleus, the privileged, the central. But the spongy nature of the peripherals tends to absorb all, all that we call all. And what it reflects back coherently, aesthetically and ritually, is perhaps, what our respective existential selves are all about.

Layered profoundly, the life at Peripherals is full of sounds, both heard and unheard, and therefore, capable of generating unpredictable overtures, here, different genres coalescing to produce what might help us to swim through the ravines of mind’s unpredictable.

Present day ruins were hubs of the past, and so the possible future ruins are perhaps, our very cherished and sought after cores. But margins, limits, boundaries, precincts, restrictions , confines, grounds, endings, sidelines, fringes, tassels, extremes, perimeter, outsides, outskirts, one times, outer reaches, suburbs, environs and villages might enable us to realize the essential of what we often dismiss as non-vital and illusory.

OUR PLACE IS THE WORLD NOT JUST THE ART WORLD

With the above slogan, a group of Artists as Karavan-Artists and Non-Artists as their Artist colleagues will constitute the Art Karavan group starting from ShantiNiketan West Bengal on 12th of Feb. 2010 and culminating at Delhi on 12th of April 2010.
 Art-Karavan-Artists will do what ideally fits into the activities of this art-camp-travel event. So, a PERFORMANCE ART based event.

Some features of Karavan event in the Train:

-  Karavan Rail Bogie to be designed by Participants

- Music ( both folk and contemporary ) Performances during travel

-Individual Performance Art events in the train, Theatre on stage and on the streets

-Poetry sessions, and Discussion on topic  around art ,life, politics, Story Telling, Performance Art etc

-Some on-the- spot  activities at different train stations, besides some  interaction with ready-made audience during travel.

Besides camping at different venues ART KARAVAN’s journey itself will become an integral part of entire celebration of this creative endeavour. The interaction with the locals and other floating visitors will only enrich the experience of the participants.

The proposed journey from station to station will be full of expressions, mainly songs and interactions with the locals. We imagine a decorated Indian Railway coach full of Art Karavan participants. A day’s Break Journey while travelling between two destinations can provide an additional opportunity to the Art Karavan troupe in a small town or city to perform with their displayable projections, masks, and other creative motifs in their hands alongwith musicals of different origins.

This Art, journeying few thousands miles, will eventually reinvigorate hundreds of artists living in this Himalayan Belt of Northern India. A large audience, both rural and urban, we beleive will appreciate the efforts of Karavan performers.

At the Camps ( in  six states ) , the Art Karavan will be holding work-shops , and interactive programmes with the local artists, and possible artists from non-artists category. Art Karavan will engage themselves into those aesthetic endeavours which are in tune with the conceptual thought of ‘ peripherals’

For instance, Karavan Participants are likely to undertake the repairing/redesigning of some dilapidated wells, public toilets, women’s toilets ( which are non-existent in India ) and broken stair cases leading to rivulets. Planting of trees, and interactive discussion will be held on to improve living standards with some simpler approaches to life, which can be artistic at the same time.

The Karavan would be a drifting space where ideas can be tested/experimented and attitudes re-questioned, with eclectic mix of works, yet each occupying its own self defining space.

This would be a truly Global meeting point, new ways of seeing, new meaning and ways of being would perhaps emerge and take us into to multi-perspective realm

So, uninhibitedly the Karavan is posited to bring in all the available devices (genres ) to generate a meaning, say radicalize the very meaning that consumes, and liberates to ‘distribute the sensible’ at the same time. The genre of PERFORMANCE ART would perhaps get something to add…

The seemingly emphasized word PERFORMANCES in this event is not intended to impose some sort of heirarchy over other known genres, since we aim for an open-ended bold participation from Artist/non-Artists who think differently about Art and Life

We beleive, that every human being is an Artist, as popularized by Joseph Beuys recently, and in earlier times propounded by poet-saint Abhinavgupta in 9th Century AD, which roughly contributes to formalize the concept that no culture is worth celebrating if it is based on the hierarchy of one over the other.

So, the event would be a crucible for melting all the conventionally known way of doing art to produce what is unknown, beautiful and true to the needs of our times.

in that sense, it will be a performance art event

From 12th of Feb. 2010 to 18th of April 2010

( Note: PERIPHERALS is realizing this Eight stage event in collaboration with Local Art Groups or Institutions. On the concluding day of each camp, an exhibition of created art works will be organized. So in all there will be eight exhibitions. However, the aim of holding the last exhibition in Delhi would be the final comprehensive presentation covering the entire process of the Art Karavan in nine stages)

STAGE I

Location: Shanti Niketan, W.B.

Collaboration: Lalit Kala Academy, Shanti Niketan University Campus
It was Rabindra Nath Tagore’s dream to move from the core to the periphery. It is this place where we will assemble to ‘distribute the sensible’ of a beginning which we still cherish. It is this place where we will return to time and again, if not physically, but in thought.

Participants will arrive directly in the campus area of Shanti Niketan. West Bengal.

A introductory seminar will be organized around the theme: Peripherals: Relevance of Art Karavan in the present:

A number of Art Critics and Artists and writers will be invited to speak and interact on the occasion. After the symposium, participating Artists will explore the vicinity of the venue, and local guides will inform them about the socio-economic conditions of the people living there. Boal Singers of Bengal will be invited to perform besides a workshop on their musical traditions.

TRAIN CODUCIVE ART ACTIVITIES SUCH AS POETRY RECITALS, STOREY REDING, DEBATES ETC, WOULD PART OF THE KARAVAN ACTIVITY FROM SHANTI-NIKETAN TO RANCHI AND ONWARDS

Stage II, Kolkata

Stage III
Location: HotWar Village, Ranchi.

Colloboration: CARDS & Citizen Foundation, Ranchi

Guess who is the neighbour of this HotWar Village in Ranchi

It is a huge Multiplex Sports Stadium for coming Asian Games. This Mega Multiplex has interestingly earmarked a Cultural Space, which we are likely to bring into the conceptual fold of our proposed Art Event; and the entire super duper structure will follow, both visually and conceptually.

There is a ‘readymade’ open space between HotWar Village and this Sports Complex which will be our area of Artistic activity. We believe, that the very ambience of the design of this unique location in Ranchi will not leave a single participating artist unaffected, both consciously and unconsciously.

Metaphorically, this blank space between the Sports Multiplex and Hotwar village will perform the role of an unwritten sequel of creative short stories by different authors. Who knows what traces of this Art Event will endure the times, and what memories will reflect?
Barely four to five Kilometeres away from the Central Ranchi. ( Here, again Ranchi City is already a ‘Peripheral’ if compared with a city like Bangalore, Chandigarh, Hyderabad etc

A huge tent made up of Bamboo stick with a roof and space for audience and performers will be created between this Hot War Village and the Sports Mega Complex.

There is a huge scope to bring local tribal artists and artisans in touch with visiting lot of contemporary artists. For example, there is already a tradition of painting the wall of houses with tribal motifs and other floral designs which is unique to Jharkhand, and these artists and contemporary artists can learns each others techniques and concepts behind their artistic practices.
Besides our commitment to exploration of newer forms of art, Art Karavan will look into the practical problems of the vicinity they will inhibit during their camping days. For example, there are some well which Art Karavan artists can design to protect it from surrounding dust falling into it. Some Artists can impart artistic skills to the young boys and girls of this little hamlet. We will circulate the entire programme through proper advertisement and other poster making campaign to visit the Art Karavan camp in Hot War village. And as we know the village is just couple of miles far from the main city Ranchi so desirous people can visit and be part of the Art Karavan activities.

stage IV
Location: Youth Hostel, Gandhi Maidan, Patna, Bihar

Collaboration with Buddha Mission of India & Prahery

Politically, what Ranchi signifies to Jharkhand, Patna signifies to Bihar. But Patna is home to some most famous Indian spiritual heroes and poets and intellectuals of the past. But the present of this city and its vicinity is suffering from acute underdevelopment, which leaves little space for people to explore their cultural sensibilities boldly. The rich cultural heritage and a fresh stock of contemporary artists in Bihar are likely to join the Art Karavan event during our stay in Youth Hostel in the city

The main feature of our Patna stay will be the Manju-Sa Shaily ( genre ), a performance, painting and architectural Art form which is amazingly unknown to the Art world. Contemporary Art is likely to benefit from their presence and interaction with the rest of the willing participants.

Goal Ghar ( 200 year old structure , a big storage in the past ) is our area to create an exhibition of created art works on the last day of our camp in Patna.

Art Karavan Stage V  Lucknow,

Colloboration Lalit Kala Academy

Art Karavan ( Stage VI  Shimla

Details are yet not sorted out, but the Karavan group is likely to continue its activities of performances, workshops, and serious interactivity with local creative woeld.

Art Karavan Stage VII

The capital city Dehradun is a hilly station of a newly formed state called Uttrakhand. This hilly region has its own pahari cultural heritage and contemporary artist who are likely to become part of our Art Karavan Camp in the Dehradun city. Himalayan cultural forms and its ways of living prevalent in the Tribal Artists will be invited to join our activities and conduct workshops.

The regions is full of wood carved temples, and a very unique style of doors and windows full of motifs that are only seen in this region.

Art Karavan Stage VIII

April )

University Campus ( Srinagar, J&K)

Colloboration with Institute of Kashmir Studies,

University of Kashmir J&K.

BUS JOURNEY FROM JAMMU CITY TO KASHMIR

Along with the local participation, the Karavan group will engage itself to create performance, workshops and presentations in the University Campus. The Students Welfare association in the Unversity, and Music and Fine Arts College would be actively involved in the entire duration of Karavan in Kashmir.

The proposal has been Okayed by the Vice Chancellor of Kashmir University, and we are looking forward to see how we the Karavan will initiate works around peace etc.
Art Karavan ( Stage IX

Delhi

In Delhi, as per the plan the entire Karavan event would be hosted by Lalit Kala Academy. It will be in the premises of Lalit Kala Academy that we would arrange a symposium and final exhibition of Video documentation of the entire Karavan activities

Besides that we would some noted performance artists of the city would perform alongwith the Karavan participants. There would be some workshops in collaboration with some art institutions

In the end , on 20th April the Karavan will depart, with a hope to begin a fresh Karavan….

With best wishes, and love and regards from

PERIPHERALS

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