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| The grand framework |
| Rrishi Raote / New Delhi Jun 13, 2009, 00:55 IST |
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Jashn-Osianama will likely become the first curated show of global artefacts.
Arts institution Osian periodically treats us to exhibitions of selections from its enormous collection of art and cultural artefacts. On its ninth anniversary, another is forthcoming this June and July in Mumbai and Delhi, titled “Jashn-Osianama: Kala, Cinema and Sanskriti Ka Mela — 500 Years of Violence Non-violence”. It brings together a huge and varied range of items. Also forthcoming, next year is the opening of Osian’s cultural centre in Mumbai. NEVILLE TULI tells Rrishi Raote about his plans.
You have material here for perhaps 10 different exhibitions. What made you decide to put it all together?
All Osian’s, archival exhibitions have a certain scale, diversity and inter-linking to convey a grand framework. That grandeur creates energy, excitement, knowledge, respect and sense of awe, especially in India, where exhibitions rarely bring in thousands of people a day. The collection is vast and “500 Years of Violence Non-violence” [sic] is one theme within the larger framework. Actually the focus is the expression of death, but naturally the path towards death involves the violence and a possible non-violence.
Any great exhibition is first and foremost an infrastructure-building platform, and all art can really do is energise the viewer, to participate a bit deeper, to fall in love anew, and from that a new respect evolves.
You have mentioned wanting to bridge the gap between museum (Western) and mela (Indian).
I feel art exhibitions in India have still not succeeded in evoking a passionate response from the wider public, though the mood has radically changed during the last decade and will continue to evolve, as art becomes a part of everyday life. Melas, on the other hand, are vibrant with an unmatched energy, though lacking in a certain intellectual discipline and focus. “Jashn-Osianama” tries to use this sense of inclusive revelry to share artistic ideas and sensibilities, but without compromising the content. The key is to break down hierarchies and let the public reconnect them. No concept of price enters the juxtapositioning of the artworks, neither do clichés regarding high and low art, popular and fine arts. The key is to make the image be read like a text, like knowledge. The image has to seduce the viewer into studying it instinctively.
When will the Osianama Cultural Complex open? How did you choose its location in Mumbai?
“Jashn-Osianama” begins the countdown to the opening (June 2010; 18 months behind schedule) of India’s first museum-archive-edutainment centre for the Indian and Asian arts, and world cinema. The primary objective has been to place arts and culture at the heart of India’s developmental framework, and Minerva cinema in Mumbai is at the heart of working, middle-class urban India, once the centre of the cinema world. More than 10,000 people walk past this crumbling structure in central Mumbai every day. If even one tenth walk in and are touched, it will be a start of rejuvenating the love and respect for creativity and culture, the heart of any great civilisation-building process. Delhi will have the next educational institute.
Who designed the layout of the exhibition and of Osianama? Do you think that, in general, exhibition design in India is still in its infancy?
As with all the archival exhibitions of Osian’s, they emanate from myself, as has Osianama. Naturally, as the scale increases, the support teams of cataloguing, research, design, display, conservation and related logistical services need to be built, and Osian’s CARD (Centre for Archiving, Research and Development) now plays the pivotal role in taking forward one’s vision. Exhibition design is absolutely in its infancy, especially from the point of view of truly reaching out effectively and with passion, not just hype, to students, the public and professionals.
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