When we started our co-operation in Kolkata we brainstormed about the possibilities and meaning of the word ‘Transformation’. During one of these sessions someone (I’m afraid I can’t remember who) suggested a story. The story tells us about a man who looses his cat to a snake. In short, a snake had wanted to attack the man was it not for his cat, who succeeded in preventing this. However, the snake had bitten the cat during the struggle and so the cat ultimately sacrificed his life to save his master.
Looking back, I probably dismissed the idea too easily, not in the least because during the preparations I had developed my own ideas and expectations. One of the main concerns for Transit\ion was (and probably still is) how we could develop creative exchanges without taking control of the entire project. Perhaps, stories about sacrifice/power relations did not really fit this aim?
Re-reading my notebook also reinforces my own feeling that we were looking for ways to cooperate as a strategy for creativity. We were all careful to make sure everyone participated, clearly visible in the fact that everyone appears in the film we made in Kolkata. But, it was not only Transit\ion’s desire. The original script written by the Patua is really a combination of many of the suggestions put forward during our initial brainstorming sessions. Was this an intentional amalgamation so everyone was being represented? We were equally non-confrontational when we were invited to respond to the script. Our suggested interventions where all very formal and we hardly engaged in the writing or content of the script.
So, to come back to the story about the cat, it would have been an interesting story to engage with. It would have highlighted, in a more direct way what we were aiming to achieve (ie… to get away from). Sadly, I didn’t see it at the time.
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