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Time is passing by at the speed of light, days are melting into nights and daylights into twilights, we are living in a city of smoke and mayhem, our abodes turning into quieter zones with windows of haze and fading light. The weather looks like a blanket of despair, quietly filling our souls with a heavy smog of dullness. Economic slowdown, hate politics, diseased air, callous leaders, past blunders are slowly creeping up in our minds and causing a cycle of fatalities, we are hanging by a thread. Art is like a mirror, reflecting things and thoughts from the past – wars, evils, monsters, sunflower fields, starry nights, retro turns, abstract worlds and euphoric creatures.
Taking us through stories of territories divided, hearts punctured and broken, people alienated, The Partition Museum and Art Pickles are coming together to narrate Partition Stories: Memories of a People Divided. The event is an amalgamation of personal narratives and objects of people who lived through the Partition from the Partition Museum’s Collection. Performances, Storytelling and Visuals becoming an arena to showcase and voice these heart wrenching stories. The testimonies not only provide an insight into the trauma faced by people during Partition but also narrate the process of rebuilding life in those dire times.
From a challenging past that is still a part of the present, to a present that never ceases to exist, India is a collection of artistic stories, events, experiences being played out through an endless reel of colour, sound, sacred caricatures, holy tribes and cultural parlance. Capturing this unceasing cultural spirit of India and its people a Solo Show by an emerging Indian Artist takes us through colourful silhouettes and visual narratives of lives of the various hawkers and pedlars of Delhi.
Biplab Sarkar’s work focuses on pops of colour, life and the hustle bustle found in the central quarters of the capital city. Through the show – I Wonder at Art District 13 Gallery, India Gate and its very integral subjects coming to life through a traditional, contemporary style of painting and illustrations by Sarkar who is also an Emerging Artist awardee.
There are places and time spaces where history is made and places where history is preserved through memoirs, stories and through people who narrate, re-narrate and carve out rich, emotional visual memories of times gone by. Then there are the everyday us and the often constant reality we keep missing, keep looking past, of earthly lives on streets that have become part of our everyday commute, yet seldom making its way into our conversations as we only keep exchanging dialogues on what was and what could be, heavily embroiled in a tussle of tradition with reality with religion with free thought.
Tracing the term and definition of a Patriarch and diving into the interior lives of men – the play, The Patriarch is a one-man act bringing together three points of view. Told through three generations of men, it confronts, engages and provokes its audience to question their views on tradition and value systems.
The performance offers its audience a different perspective, stripping the standard notion that the patriarchal structure only affects women. Told through a single monologue divided into three acts, it does not pass judgment or conclude, yet lays open new points to consider. The performance becomes an intimate conversation between the audience and the performer, performed through varied series of voices, postures, tone and body language. The Play Factory, a Delhi based theatre production company presents this hour-long play at The Black Canvas, LTG Delhi.
From dreamers at night, to doers at dawn, from vile creatures in blankets of dark lights, we are drowning ourselves in a sunset of apprehension, in times of fear, in times of naked perversion. We are surrounded by a weather of pretention, suffocating us with a smog of false hope, a submerged economy, a fully defeated conscience, yet we are living, through all the smoke and dust of the air which physically harms our valiant lungs, and the radical air which has choked our soul, quashed our human self into believing the vices of a leadership.
Events
Memoirs of a People Divided by The Partition Museum (Amritsar) and Art Pickles, December 1, 12pm-2pm, at Hide in (Saket) D-2, 3RD Floor, Saket, Delhi
I Wonder, a Solo Show by Biplab Sarkar, at Art District 13, MB Road, New Delhi, December 8 , 4-6:30pm
The Patriarch: a play by The Play Factory, on h December 7-8, 7:30pm at The Black Canvas, LTG, 1, Copernicus Marg, Mandi House, New Delhi
