(Mathai KT performing A Transparent Pact)
In the times
of spectacles, during the days when human beings communicate between each other
through understanding the symbolic values created out of the relationship
between the circulated images, a project like ‘A Transparent Pact’ by a Kochi based
artist, Mathai KT becomes all the more important. As the title shows the
project is a transparent pact between human beings and nature. Mathai, in his
concept note says, ‘Go local to go global. Protect our village, protect our
earth. Submit to the earth like a plant does.’
(Mathai KT receiving plant from an elder)
‘A
Transparent Pact’ held on 21st April 2012 at the Arakunnam Village
in Kerala was a performance art project initiated by Mathai and done in
collaboration with the people of the village. Inspiration for this project
comes from one of the Church rituals called, ‘Adima Veykkal’, which literally
means ‘to become a slave of God’. Mathai takes a relook at the ritual and he
himself transforms into a slave of nature/God by picking up a plant from the
premises of the Church and taking it along the village streets and finally
planting it in a barren land created by the constant land digging by the
building material contractors.
(The Procession starts)
Mathai is
not a performance ‘performance’ artist. As a painter he has been creating works
that depict the fading glory of his village thanks to the constant exploitation
of land, water and other resources by the land and building mafia. There has
been a two pronged approach by this mafia. On the one hand they dig out the
laterite soil for building purpose by mauling the village with the sleepless
earth moving machines called JCBs. They pilfer earth out of the village and
later this land is reserved for future urban developments. This is not an
isolated phenomenon in Kerala. Houses, churches, temples, agricultural lands
and water bodies are now seen precariously perched on land blokes, which are
left untouched by the JCB machines.
(Through the village paths)
In one of
his paintings, Mathai shows a man carrying a bucket of water with a few water lilies
strewn around as a last ditch effort to save a pond from ultimate and untimely
decimation. In another work, he shows a suburb creeping into the precincts of a
village by slowly building large Bisleri bottle like structures all around. The
performance, ‘A Transparent Pact’ is a result of Mathai’s insuperable concern
for nature and earth.
(Along the streets)
At ten in
the morning on 21st April 2012, Mathai receives a mango plantain from
an elder and starts his procession from the St.George Jacobite Church premises.
A drummer leads the way. Friends and family members walk with the artist.
Mathai wears a robe specially designed for the purpose. The half open cassock
has chess board patterns on it, symbolically suggesting the ways how human
beings are made pawn by the vested interests who exploit the natural resources.
Like a village farmer, Mathai wears a blue dhoti and covers his head with ‘thorthu’,
a locally woven light cotton towel generally used in Kerala. He bears the
weight on the plant on his right shoulder. People are excited and enthused by
this unexpected procession. Some of them follow Mathai.
(Planting on the top of a small hill)
The
procession ends on a hill top where Mathai plants the mango plantain. The whole
procession reminds Jesus Christ’s painful travel to the Calvary hills where he
was supposed to be crucified. In a metaphorical way Mathai tells his viewers
that the plant/nature is his cross now, which he would bear happily for the
common good. When he walks up to the hill, he symbolically enacts the death in
cross; death of a fighter who stood for the social causes. But through the
plant, Mathai suggests the possibilities of resurrection. Mathai asserts that
if everyone is ready to bear his or her cross to redeem the world/earth, there
could be resurrection; resurrection of earth.
(Watering)
After the
planting ceremony- in an Elliot-ian sense it is death and birth at once, a few
artists who have come down to Arakunnam to show solidarity and support to
Mathai’s performance, along with a few village based artists who do not look
for fame or fortune elsewhere, travel to a vast earthen wall created by the JCB
machines by their constant gnawing. The artists namely Mathai, Devadas, Roy Thampuran, Sivadas, Gopinath, Sasi, Unni, Abhilash Unny, Hochimin PH, Salim AK, Vibin George and so on work at the wall
using lime and house painting brushes to produce some vital images of basic
human thinking.
(Hochimin PH working on the wall)
Their effort
is not to create stunning frescos on the wounded earth. They want to tell the
world that slowly we are turning ourselves into primitive people, though
innocent but condemned to draw the pictures of their basic necessities. The
paintings created by the artists on this huge wall look like intentional
fossils; a sort of reminders of our imminent destruction. They create a tree of
life keeping laterite stones on the vast barren land from where the rich earth
has been pilfered off.
(artists at work and the outcome)
‘A
Transparent Pact’ is a pact with the earth and nature. Mathai assures, through
his humble effort that he is going to be there to voice against the earth
mafia. He wants to tell his own people that if they are not cautious they are
going to be doomed forever. “We should protect our local cultures, agriculture,
economy and ways of living in order to go global. Being global does not mean mindless
intake of anything foreign and celebration of the same. Being local is being
global. Our future lies in environmental protection,” says Mathai.
2 comments:
this is one interesting ..let give water to some tree today..
It was an unforgettable experience..
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