Reva Diaries- Finalisations..

by Rahul Bhattacharya on Monday, 28 March 2011 at 11:44 ·

• After much brainstorming among curators, coordinators, local support groups and some of the participating artists, we have come to a conclusion that holding a press conference in Indore might be too early and a bit rash. The purpose of this press conference was to share the documentation of the Pathrad camp and refresh journalistic memory about how artists can engage with displacement and people the affected people. We have decided to instead issue a press note, inviting journalists to Reva Diaries as observers and possible neutral documentors.

The other important shift from the action plan is not to use cameras as a primary mode of documentation as we would be occupying private spaces and the camera is often viewed as a tool that infringes privacy.
The third deviation from the action plan is that the Jantar Mantar presentation is not a foregone conclusion but instead it is through a discussion during the residency that will decide how we will carry it forward.

here are the day by day break up of what we might be doing..
(might because we can always choose)

• 1st April - Departure from Indore at 3pm. [those arriving later can leave in a group with a local coordinator once the last person has arrived] - spending the first night at  Omkareshwar...Interaction with the community, film screening,  visiting the river.

                                                                                                           

lands between Omkareshwar and Pusa

• 2nd April -Departure at 8am from Omkareshwar for Dharaji ; seeing Punasa Dam (the biggest dam in India)

                            => On reaching Dharaji, discussion on geography, history and tradition of the area.
                            => introdction to the many histories of resistances from the area...activists and villagers will come        and share stories with us.
                            => from lunch time on every participant gets into a dialogue with the curators and coordinators as to how they would like spend the next 3 days...what are the kinds of interactions and projects they would be interested in.

                                                                                                               the banks of narmada at dharaji

       day 2 will be devoted to group brainstorming of individual plans and facilitation of implementation.

• from day one the late evening will be deditated to artists showing work to our hosts, getting into a dialouge about their practice etc. one is free to choose what kind of work to share, and the manner of sharing.

•  3th-4th April - implementation of plans and projects

along with the artist presentations, the evenings  will be filled with music and story telling sessions.

• 5th April- winding up day, saying goodbyes and leaving for Khandwa

sharing Reva diaries with local press, and having a dinner dialogue about how to take it forward...

                                                momentary dispersal begins

Why meet at Jantar Mantar?

Ever since the early 1990s, Jantar Mantar had been a space for farmer groups, human-rights activists and other political groupings to bring their issues to public notice. Since the Narasimha Rao government had banned access to the Boat Club Grounds near India Gate, the protestors had shifted primarily to the Jantar Mantar area. We should understand that Delhi is the political centre of the country which makes it the strategic, and in most cases, the inevitable choice for people’s demands for justice.The shrinkage of space of dissent is curently underway and this beautification drive seems to be pushing it to an extreme. Dissenters are understood in all the negative avatars of encroachers, traffic-jammers, illiterate vandalizers but never for what they are, and never for the reason they are there in the first place.

What are we hoping to achieve:

As project curators and organizers we would like to present documents of the artists presentations and show films, photographs, write-ups..etc. at a non-commercial political site thats why we chose Jantar Mantar

After having chosen the site, we just thought of tapping the political potential the space offers. We are now trying to put our energies into having a rally which will be a nation-wide meet of about fifty thousands people coming from across the country including people from movements and organisations like NBA, Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha, IPTA, Sahmat, AISA and like minded groups including mainstream media, local media, bloggers, net activists etc.

Poetic Terrosism

Performance art is a concept metaphor usually used to tag avant-garde/conceptual art which grew out of visual art practice and locates the body and space as the as the subject and the actual material for the artwork. Traditionally it is viewed as an interventionist challenge to Painting and Sculpture, and located in the realm of ephemeral artistic practices which resist the "commodity status" of art products. However Performance Art is also a resistant to main stream practices in theater, and has enacted the resistance through positing the performer as an artist (as against a character) and working in the margins/outside of the traditional understanding of plot or narrative and often actively subverting them.
Over the last two decades performance art has largely gained from trends towards dienchanments about the objecthood of art. There has been a significant growth in interest towards the process; performance art often highlights 'process' as an anti-thesis to the 'celebrated  finished hood', often situating itself in an anti commodity protest. However it has also diversified into being a 'new art' which transcends boundaries of recognized media, encompassing those that have not been previously identified as artistic media....especially within fine art practices.
Although performance art claims a inter media status, it is still claimed from within a particular framework of visual arts practices. In its workings to create an 'other' vis-à-vis performing arts, performance art tends to become more comfortable with it's another 'other' i.e. 'fine arts. The KHOJ 2004-05 November December International Residency was a step towards discovering, locating and showcasing newly emerging practices in an attempt to challenge the concept metaphor called 'performance art in India'.
We have been exposed to various possibilities in performance through the various KHOJ worhshops where over the years a number of artists have worked with performance art. Even outside KHOJ, artists like Nalini Ramani, Rumanna Hussain, Sharmila Samant, Pushpamala and Monali Meher have been exploring possibilities and re defining performance art. In 2004 we decided to put it all together in a residential 'process and display' format and give performance art a new critical impetus through practice. The residency was a significant exploration of 'performance' within visual arts.
There is a need to challenge the 'trans media' claims of performance art and to interrogate the comfort it enjoys with a certain kind of 'high' within visual art practices. If performance art has to engage with allegations about it being a derivative practice, it has to it has to constantly rejuvenate it self ....possibly through pushing boundaries of performing and video. The KHOJ 2005-2006 residency is curated towards putting together artists from across the board in an attempt to rejuvenate the concept and practice of performance art in India.

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rahul bhattacharya

Joint Secretary
Performers Independent
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let the river flow