At Pingla and Dashpur we organised screenings of a film we made, compiled from footage taken during last years project. The screenings were an opportunity for the people in the village to see what the participating artists made last year, and a reminder for the artists.
We had to adjust to a different ways of working during our visit in Naya. Artists that we worked with, their family, and friends who participated in screenings and workshops were all busy during the day and most of the evening. It was surprisingly difficult to set the time for the screening. Then the power went off and we had to wait. I felt that it was somehow liberating to act according to those new rules. Power is on - lets run and show the film! Power is off – there is nothing to do but wait, talk…
ReplyDeleteWe were guests, but we were also artists that came to do some work and we had to start the project, introducing our ideas, working together again after one year break. So we had lots of conversations about what to do, when, how. We made plans in London, but arriving to Naya was nothing that we could predict. We didn’t consider the daily schedule that Patachitra had, there was also a different hierarchy of importance. What was a top activity for us was not necessarily of their interest. We had years of art college behind, they had a practical school of painting and narrative storytelling. Our concept of art wasn’t the same, neither was our way of looking, and the processes involved in its creation.
No one in Naya spoke English, therefore Sumona our translator played an important role – she was not only a translator but also an interpreter. Literal translations between English and Bengali did not make any sense, she had to translate the meaning not the words. Contextualizing what each group had said according to the other groups cultural background.