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.