Amazing Rock-Temples of Mahabalipuram Part 2

This second post on the amazing rock-temples of Mahabalipuram from 6-8th century CE is about the ancient ruins in the south-east part of the area known as Arjuna’s Penance. The first part of this post had described the history and rock-cutting techniques of rock-temples in India and presented some monuments from the north-west part of “Arjun’s Penance Monument Park”.

This part presents the monuments from the remaining part of the park starting with the incredible sculptures of Arjun's Penance.

Arjun’s Penance

As you come out of the park-exit in front of Ganesha’s rath, on your right you can see the most beautiful sculptures of Mahabalipuram – this is the famous Arjun’s Penance.

This rich bass-relief of birds, animals, gods, kings and ascetics sculpted on the granite surface, is among the most wonderful art in the world. It is composed of two rock surfaces with a narrow gully in the centre, which is cleverly used to depict the Hindu story about the descent of river Ganges on the earth. During the rainy season, I could imagine the rain water cascading down in that funnel, making the myth come alive in a 3-D spectacle. This amazing work of art faces West Raja street in Mahabalipuram.

The sculptures are spread-out like a wide-screen cinema screen with gods, ascetic sages, kings and queens along with playful birds and animals, depicted in rows, mostly looking towards Ganga’s descent with wonder and reverence. Many of them show their right palms, a sign of benediction, towards the visitors.

Near the top, to the left of Ganga’s descent is the figure of a man with his hands raised up and ribs sticking out, standing on one foot. Some people believe that this figure is of Bhagirath, who according to the Puranic Stories of Hinduism, had done a Tapasya (penance) to bring Ganges to earth.

However, many believe that this figure is that of Arjun, (one of the 5 Pandav-brothers from Mahabharat), doing tapasya to get a boon from Shiva, who is shown standing next to him on his right. I really loved this group of sculptures, it is both majestic and joyful. It has been made in loving details such as the two elephants with many baby elephants on the right side and the two ducks near the penancing Arjun.

Terminology Used for Arjun's Penance

I am not sure if “Penance” is the right word to translate “Tapasya”, which means doing worship while giving suffering to the body (for example, by standing or sitting in a difficult pose for a long time without eating or drinking).

Tapasya was used by people in the Hindu, Buddh and Jain stories to force the God to grant them boons such as special powers or weapons. For example, there are many Buddhist tales about monks closing themselves in small spaces for months to do Tapasya and gain special powers.

On the other hand, the word “Penance” is linked to Catholicism, it means expiation for some sin, which is not how Arjuana or Bhagirath approach their worship. In Hinduism, I think that the word "penance" can be used for doing reparations (by organising yagna, doing charity) after a wrong act, such as killing someone by mistake. However, since everywhere in Mahabalipuram the words "Arjun's Penance" have been used, so I have used that same term in this post, even if I disagree with it.

Krishna Mandapam

Next to the Arjun’s Penance if you walk towards the south, you come across another rock-temple. It is dedicated to Krishna and it also has lovely bass-reliefs related to the pastoral life in Mathura-Vrindavan in north of India.

On one side, it has Krishna holding the Govardhan mountain with his hand while saving the people of Vrindavan from the wrath of the rain god Indra.

It also has a man milking a cow who is licking her calf and other joyful scenes showing dancing couples.

These sculptures depicting life in Mathura and Vrindavan in the north of India are a symbol of essential cultural unity of India even if the different parts of the country were under different empires and kingdoms. Therefore, though we may think of unification of India as a modern nation state only in 1947, we can also think of a civlisational unity of India which goes back to some millenniums.

Trials for Making Arjun’s Penance

As you walk further to the south, you come across another granite surface covered in rough bass-relief sculptures. These are somewhat similar to the sculptures of Arjun’s Penance, though are more roughly carved. This is supposed to be the model where the design of Arjun’s Penance was first tested before their actual execution.

Or, it is possible that initially they wanted to make this sculpture in this location, but the artists were not happy and looked around till they found a more suitable location.

Mahishasur Mardini Temple

Going further along this road, you pass the light house and then come to southern entrance to the Monument park, with rock-cut stairs leading up to the Mahishasur Mardini rock-temple.

The rocky platform in front of the temple has some beautiful boulders, some of them cut and then left unfinished.

Inside, this temple has two finely made bass-relief sculptures - on the left, there is Vishnu lying on the serpent Sheshnaag.

On the right, there is goddess Durga killing the bull-headed demon king Mahishasur, giving name to this temple.

Just across from the temple, you have a nice view of the light house and its entrance.

On the rocks above the older Mahishasur Mardini temple, there is another temple – Onkeleshwar temple. It is built with rock blocks, and seems to be a later construction, probably from the time when the Shore temple was built.

Conclusions

This description of temples and monuments in the Arjun’s Penance Monument Park is incomplete. There are many more structures from the Pallava period in this area (including water tanks and monolithic temples) that I have ignored in my descriptions.

Though it is a world Heritage site of UNESCO, I didn’t find a lot of information about the monuments in the area. I tried to check if there were thesis or specialist papers about Mahabalipuram but didn’t find much. I think that every temple and building of this area merits many a thesis. For example, I would have liked to know more about the epigraphs and strange signs chiselled on some rocks, such as the one shown in the image below (which looks like a compass drawing of an architect).

Apart from the Arjun's Penance area, there are many other important sacred monuments in Mahabalipuram, like the wonderful shore temple and the monolithic temples of Pancha Ratha. It is an amazing place to visit.

To read about some other monuments including Krishna's Butter Ball and to learn about history of rock-temples in India, do check the first part of this post. 

*****

#rockartofindia #rocktemples #mahabalipuram #arjunapenance #hinduism #ancienttemples

Exiled in Spinalonga

The book “The Island” by Victoria Hislop is a story about 4 generations of a family from Plaka (Crete, Greece), marked by love, betrayal and leprosy. It is also about the world of Spinalonga, where persons with leprosy in Greece were exiled for about five decades during the first half of the 20th century.

Isolation of Persons with Leprosy

From prehistoric times, communities across the world had banished persons with leprosy to the outskirts. In early 20th century, developments in microbiology had convinced the doctors that isolation of persons with leprosy was necessary to prevent the passage of infection to others.

Islands were a natural choice for their isolation. Countries had made laws that asked for compulsory shifting of persons diagnosed with leprosy to the designated isolated areas. Thus, children were taken away from their parents, mothers and fathers were taken away from their children, and forced to live in such isolated places. If women in these places became pregnant, they were forced to undergo abortions and if they had babies, these were taken away and given for adoption. These laws were scrapped only around 1960-70s, as new medicines to treat leprosy had become available.

Last year, I had visited the Nagashima island in Japan (image below), which was also used for the isolation of persons with leprosy. There I had heard about Spinalonga island in Greece, for the first time.

The Island by Victoria Hislop

During the three decades of my work with AIFO, I had heard many stories from persons with leprosy about their lost families. Thus, when I had started reading “The Island”, I already had some ideas about what I was going to find in the book.

"The Island" is the story of Eleni, a primary school teacher, her husband, Giorgis, a boatman and their two daughters Anna and Maria, who live in Plaka on the island of Crete. Giorgis supplements his income by carrying supplies to the leprosy-island of Spinalonga.

In 1939, Eleni and one of her students, Dimitri, are diagnosed with leprosy, and are forced to leave their families and shift to Spinalonga. After a few years, Eleni dies. Her daughters grow up with Giorgis. Anna marries Andreas, son of a rich land-owner. Maria is planning to get married to Andreas’ cousin when she is diagnosed with leprosy and forced to shift to Spinalonga.

It is the time of discovering new medicines for treating leprosy and a few years later, the persons are no longer forced to live in Spinalonga because the disease can be cured. Maria returns home and marries a doctor whom she had met in Spinalonga. Anna has a baby girl, Sofia, but has problems in her marriage, and a tragedy waiting for her.

The story is told in flashback with Alexis, Sofia’s daughter who has come to Plaka to learn about her mother’s family.

Comments

The Island is a well-written family saga with strong women characters. For me, its most interesting parts were the descriptions of the life in Spinalonga, including the stories about testing of new medicines for curing leprosy.

Clearly the author had done a huge amount of research to present a well-balanced picture about the situation of leprosy in the early 20th century Greece. Its strong point is that the book is never didactic, and the aspects about leprosy are well woven in the story. While talking about loss and exile, it also tells about love, friendship and solidarity.

Conclusions

The Island was a very successful book. It was converted into a 26 parts Greek-TV serial. Since then Hislop has written a few other books, which have also been successful. At the same time, she has become an ambassador for LEPRA, the British association working for the fight against leprosy.

This book brought the attention of Greek authorities about the unique history of Spinalonga, which is trying to become a UNESCO World Site of Humanity’s Heritage.

I have heard many heart-breaking stories of lost families and lost children during my travels in the old leprosy sites, though there were also some stories of hope and reunions. Though in most countries, the laws regarding forced isolation were changed during the 1970-80s, persons who had lived away from their families for decades, had often continued to live in their old leprosy centres, because those prisons had become their homes where they had forged new bonds of kinship with their fellow companions.

Earlier this year, while travelling in India, I had met Chait Singh who had been forced to leave his village and live an ashram, because he had leprosy. While telling me about his village, his eyes had filled with tears. This post is dedicated to him and to all those persons who continue to be exiled because of continuing prejudices and stigma against leprosy.

*****

#leprosy #spinalonga #historyofleprosy #historyofmedicine #bookreview #victoriahislop 

Indian Understandings of God

Probably no one can tell when and where did the prehistoric progenitors of humans first thought of God. However, by early historical period, all the human civilizations had some concepts of God. Those civilisations were very different from each other, but the concepts of God they developed were similar. However, around 4 thousand years ago, ancient Indians developed an additional concept of God that was slightly different from the other common concepts. This post is about the evolution of the God-concepts in ancient Indian religions (Indic religions) including Hinuism, Jainism and Buddhism.

Before talking about India, lets first take a look at how different civilisations thought of God.

From the “Sacred Nature” to the “Gods Governing the Nature”

Around the world, the first concepts of God were of deities represented by and governing specific aspects of nature. This way of imaging the God still exists in many communities. It considers as sacred the objects of the natural world. Plants, trees, stones, mountains are seen as manifestations of God and worshipped. The image below has sacred trees (India), trees under which people may place a statue or a stone and worship it as a symbol of God.

Other people imagined God as human-like beings with supernatural powers who controlled specific aspects of the nature. Thus, they had a god for the rain and another for the sea, a god for the war and another for love. From the Amerindians to Romans, Egyptians and Persians, every culture had their pantheon of gods and their stories of creation. The word Pantheon comes from a building in ancient Rome which had all the different Roman deities to which they worshipped. The image below has some of the Indian gods in a temple in Bangalore.

The one God

The ideas of one God arose in the Middle-East, among the Jews, Christians and Muslims, though we had a brief glimpse of this idea during the reign of Akhneton, the Egyptian Pharoah, many centuries earlier. Each of these religions linked it with a specific prophet, and each group claimed that their path to God was the only true one.

This God was imagined as a “benevolent father” – who was merciful and loving, but he asked to be worshipped regularly and properly. He also laid down a set of rules for his followers, including rules about dressing, eating, praying and resting. If you did not follow his norms, he could also punish. He did not like and thus refused to tolerate that people follow other “false gods” and prescribed different roles for men and women.

These concepts led to the birth of the three organised religions that are also known as the Abrahamic religions - Jewish, Christianity and Islam. Among these, Christianity and Islam became actively proselytising, going out to convert persons of other religions, because they felt that it was their sacred duty to save the souls of others who were on a wrong path and were going to finish in hell.

James A. Michener in his 1965 book “The Source” has beautifully described the evolution of the concept of one God in the middle east, leading to Jewish religion, Christianity and Islam.

Evolution of the God concepts in ancient India

What about the Indians? How was the evolution of the God-concept in India? Ancient Indians had many different ideas about God – considering nature as sacred, having a set of divine human-like beings with special powers and having a father-like God. However, they also went a step further and thought of God as “Parmatma” or the “Universal Consciousness” that underlies every particle of the universe.

Another unique Indian feature was that all these different ways of conceptualising God co-existed. One idea about God did not replace the other ideas, instead Indians sought explanations that could justify each way and look at them as “different paths” to reach the same eternal truth. This was necessary because geographically Indian subcontinent is a huge landmass, for most of its history sub-divided into kingdoms, that changed boundaries and alliances across the centuries. Thus religious ideas were not marked for their differences, but rather, they sought explanations which helped them to be perceived under one over-arching umbrella.

The first Vedas, the earliest texts of Indians about the divine, were written around 2000 BCE, that means around 4000 years ago. These books presented all these different concepts of the God. This colourful mosaic of belief systems, sometimes contradictory, constitutes Hinduism and its other Indic religions, including Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism (though individuals who have learned to see the world under the lens of monotheistic religions, tend to focus more on differences and try to separate each sub-group and divide them into sects and separate religions).

Examples from Vedas to illustrate different ways of conceptualising God in the Indic Religions

Vedas use different words for God such as, Ishwar (Lord of the desires), Parmatma (ultimate soul) and Brahman (universal consciousness).

(1) The first example is a shloka (verse) from Atharv-veda (11-7-21):

It says: “Red earth, sand, stones, medicinal plants, creepers, blades of grass, clouds, lightening and rain, they are all interconnected and are all based in the God.”

While considering everything in the universe to be interconnected, it also explains the sacredness of nature. A couple of years ago, while on a walk in Guwahati in the north-east of India, I had met a Sadhu Nobin baba, who had talked to me about the calming of mind till you could feel the energy coming out of some points of the rocks. For him, that energy coming out from the earrth and rocks and which he could perceive, was the God (Nobin baba in the image below).

(2) The second example is a shloka from Rig-Veda (1-164-46):

It says: “Some call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna or Agni, for some he is a bird with beautiful wings; Agni, Yama or Vayu, all represent the same truth called by different names.”

This shloka explains how the different divinities worshipped by people are all expressions of the same God.

(3) The next example, also a shloka from Rig-Veda (10-82-3), describes the God as a father-figure, closer to the concept of God in the Abrahamic religions:

It says: “God is our father, he gives birth to us and controls us. He knows this and all the other worlds. All the different gods are part of him, all the worlds go to him with their questions.”

Thus in this verse, God is a father. However, instead of saying that other gods are false, as in monotheistic religions, here there is an explicit acceptance of praying to other gods, since they are all understood to be the expression of the same God.

(4) The last example is a shloka from Yajur-veda and is about God as universal consciousness:

It says: “Searching for the truth, the sage went all around this and other worlds, went in all directions and even to the land of gods. He found that everywhere there was the same all-pervading truth. After knowing this, he became part of that truth and then understood that he had always been a part of that truth.”

This way of describing God as an all-pervading presence in both animate and inanimate world is the unique feature of the ancient Indian thought. It denotes the presence of God in all its creatures and thus becomes the logic for respecting life and nature in all its forms. It is a call for recognising the dignity and equality of all human beings.

The concept of Universal Consciousness and India’s Social Realities

I love the concept of universal consciousness, that everything in the world is interconnected and expression of the same God. However, I also wonder, why in spite of such an inclusive thinking, did India develop a social reality marked by caste hierarchies that exploited and oppressed millions of persons?

Through the centuries, there were many social reformers in India, from Buddha to poet-saints such as Basvanna, Meera, Kabir, Rahim and Nanak to social reformers like Mahatma Gandhi, who promoted equality of all human beings, but they did not manage to demolish this system. Why?

Perhaps one of the answers to this question lies in the words of a 15th poet-saint Kabir who had written that: It is not by reading of books that one gains knowledge; only when you learn love, you become knowledgeable. Our communities have this age-old knowledge, but perhaps it is seen as an abstract concept and not as the living truth? Or, perhaps for most persons, the abstract concept of God as an all pervading consciousness is too difficult to understand and follow, and they feel more secure in thinking of God as a specific deity or a father-figure who can help them or punish them?

I want to conclude this post with a picture from Kannur in Kerala in the south of India, in which a person from a "lower caste" gets ready to welcome the God (Theyyam) in his body. For the few days of the temple festival, his caste will not matter and everyone in the community will bow before him, looking at him as the manifestation of God on earth.

Our challenge is how to change our thinking so that we can first see the God in all the persons and all the God's creatures, big and small.

*****

#god #prophets #religions #hinduism #india #veda #sacredbooksofhinduism

Papermade & the paper art (2)

Papermade is a biannual art exhibition held in Schio in the north-east of Italy around Christmas. As its name suggests, it focuses on paper art. The last Papermade exhibition was held in December 2017. In this post I present some of my favourite works from this exhibition, starting with the installation that I liked the most.

The above image shows details of a sculpture called "In your arms" by the Italian artist Marco Laganà. It was made by using papier-mache on a wooden structure, showing a soft whitish-bluish tree with a black bird. It was the art work that I liked the most in this exhibition because it gave me a surreal and dreamy feeling. I also loved the texture of branches and the bird. In fact, I think that in appreciating the paper art, texture of the paper plays a crucial role.

Let me now present some other works that I liked in this exhibition.

A sacred geometry by Karen Oremus (Canada/UAE)

Karen had created this work by cutting shapes in the paper with a laser and then stacking those papers over one another. This led to the creation of two kinds of towers - a downward going gentle tower/well that reminded me of the geological configuration of the Echo point near Munnar in Kerala, India. The other was a tower rising up in the air.

Scattered words in Arabic and English on the two sculptures made me think of the mythical Tower of Babel.

Domestic intimacy by Alexio Minini (Italy)

Alexio used paper and the origami to create a dancing old couple. The paper folds were very effective in creating wrinkles and screwed-up eyes on the faces of the dancers. (Click on the image for a bigger view)

This sculpture reminded me of very similar paper sculptures that I had seen in the central square of Mexico city in the early 1990s. I had even bought one of those sculptures as a gift for a friend. I wonder if something similar has inspired Minini's work.

At home by Maurizio Corradin (Italy)

Maurizio, an art therapist, had made a huge installation of a dome using paper, plastic, coloured LED lights and painting. The image of this work that you will find below shows the close-up of one of the sculptures near the bottom of the structure so that you can appreciate the kind of work that had gone in creating it.

The tiny figure seems to be made of metal wearing a helmet along with a red shoe in the left foot. It has wings of paper while white flowers adorn its head. It also has a wood stick with its tip painted black representing an erect phallus, giving the idea of a tribal fertility god.

Overall, I found the installation to be a little gimmicky for my taste and it did not evoke an emotional response in me. However, I did appreciate some of the details of this work.

House of my mind by Daniela Camuncoli (Italy)

Daniela is known for her paper collage work. She had made a wonderful collage of a young woman with earnest blue eyes that I loved for its colours, form and textures. I thought that it was unpretentious, clean and direct. It also had a charm in it that made me stand there and look at it for a very long time.

Apart from David Laganà's papier mache installation mentioned above, this was the art work that I liked most in this exhibition.

Some other Paper art installations

In the first part of this post presenting some works from a previous Papermade exhibition, I had explained that I am not fond of use of computers to create art - I feel that it is a kind of cheating. However, I also agree that my attitude towards digital art is a bit irrational - digital art is probably the future of art and artists need to have the freedom to use the medium they like for their art-expression.

Here are some other installations from the Papermade exhibition, which were good but at the same time, were based on a more traditional use of paper.

The first of these was a work called "Over confidence" by the Italian artist Alberto Balletti. It had been produced by an ink-jet etching. It showed a nude couple, probably in their fifties or sixties, who seem to be lying close to each other and yet distant, lost in thoughts with a kind of defeated look on their faces. I am not sure why the artist has named it "over confidence". Can anyone explain?

The second was called "Cartographies of the soul" and was by the Argentinian artist Alicia Candiani. It had a row of papers, each with blocks of orange and white colours with some superimposed images like the arm and the hand shown in the image below.

The third was called "Through the glass" by the Italian artist Simone del Pizzol. It had prints of an ink etching hanging in a row in a room, each showing some variation around a figure seen across a glass.

The fourth and the last art work of this group that I liked was called "Acathexis" and was by the Israeli artist Orit Hofshi. In this, the artist had used xylography (wood block printing), showing figures made in black ink against a red background. The image below presents some details from this work.

Acathexis is a psychoanalytical term used for persons who are unable to feel and show emotional responses. I think that probably this work showed Israeli persons who have been desensitised by the long on-going war with the Palestinians.

Conclusions

I like Papermade art when artists use paper as a building material through papier-mache, collage, assemblage, origami or paper-cutting, and not just use it to print or paint something. In the last Papermade exhibition, there were not so many examples of such use of paper to create art. Most of the works had used paper to print or paint. Thus, I was a little disappointed. However, I loved two works - House of my mind and In your arms.

If you had missed part 1 of this post about a previous Papermade exhibition, you can also check it.

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Papermade & the paper art (1)

Since 2013, around Christmas every two years, Schio in the north-east of Italy holds an art exhibition called Papermade, focusing on paper-art. This first part of my blog-post presents some of my favourite exhibits from the Papermade exhibition held in December 2013. The second part of this post will look at exhibits from the event held in December 2017.

The above image presents Paper Women with  papier-mache white shoes shown against a red backdrop. It was one of my favourite installations from that exhibition. It was a work of Taiwanese artist Li Chen.

Let me also explain why I liked Chen's shoes! I think that appreciating art is about emotions provoked by the art. It reminded me of a Bollywood song from the 1964 film "April Fool"- "Mera naam Rita Cristina, ai-yai-ya, mein of Paris ki haseena, ai-yai-ya". You can watch this song on Youtube and try to guess why this work of art reminded me of that song!

Use of paper in art

Paper-making was invented in China around 2000 years ago. It came to Europe in the 12th century.

The tradition of Papier-mache, combining sheets of paper and molding them to create sculptural forms, also goes back to early China. It was adopted in France in the 17th century, who gave it its name by which this technique is widely known today.

Cutting paper for artistic expression was also invented in China in the 4th century. Folding papers to create paper-sculptures called Origami developed in the Edo period of Japan in the 17th century. Collage and Assemblage created by gluing together different materials on paper to create art are credited to early 20th century France.

Thus, using paper in different ways as a medium of artistic expression is not new. The Papermade exhibition of Schio brought together some examples of these practices.

Here are some of the art installations that I liked from Papermade 2013.

Secret Heart by Marina Bancroft (Canada)

This installation had a book whose pages had been cut in different ways, creating layers of paper-strips with scattered and incomplete words, growing in different directions. At some places, the paper strips were weaved like baskets, at others they were free floating.

Forgotten words by Terhi Hursti (Finland)

This installation also had books in Coptic calligraphic language, bound together along with forms in fluffy white cotton. The yellowed and blackened margins of the books, which were deformed as if they had been out in the rain, gave me an idea of passage of time and experiences of life.

The fading inks of the calligraphy made me think of all the languages, stories and cultures that are disappearing and dying, as young people think that English language and Western cultural values express superiority, modernity and progress while indigenous cultures and values are reduced to becoming museum pieces.

Paper Mache Tank by Marco Ferrari (Italy)

This installation used a wooden structure on which plastic containers in different forms and colours were recreated with paper-mache. It reminded me of some of my journeys in Africa, where in the rural areas, it is not easy to find petrol pumps and where people, especially women, sit along the roadsides selling petrol in colourful plastic containers.

It also made me think of the tons of plastic bags and bottles that are littering our lands, ponds, rivers and oceans, creating a vast new continent of garbage.

The second moon by Fernando Masone (Italy)

The installation had a central rod covered with paper that carried a three-tiered cut-paper flower at the top. I am not sure about the symbolism of the two cups holding the round moon of cut paper, but I liked its simple lines and symmetry. The textures of handmade paper were also very prominent in this work.

Vertigo by Margherita Levo Rosemberg (Italy)

This installation had rolled up papers from newspapers and magazines, stitched together in different layers along circular wire frames that brought a mild sense of vertigo as I looked at them. It was one of the most physical installation in the exhibition. The artist Rosemberg is a psychiatrist and she adds different layers of meanings to her works, both physical and psychological.

Design For Living & Lost Letters by Peter Ford (UK)

Let me conclude this post with the work of another artist that I liked very much.

The British artist had two installations and I liked both of them. Design for Living had designs made by raised-up relief on handmade paper. It had geometric forms laid out in grids, mixed with islands of people. It made me think of a map for blind and low-vision persons and I liked its gentle colours.

Lost Letters had wood-block prints in rectangular blocks that reminded me of ponds where they grow fish and prawns. Round bumps of coloured papers rising up in those ponds were like some little islands. Words like memories and forgetting floated in those ponds.

Conclusions

I liked the idea behind the Papermade exhibition. However, many of the exhibits were paintings or printed things on paper, and I did not find their ideas very stimulating or innovative. I must also confess that I am not enthusiastic about digital art - I feel that it is a kind of artistic cheating if we use computers to create art. I am sure that many of you would not agree with me on this point!

Most art exhibitions of Schio are held at the historic building of Palazzo Fogazzaro in the city centre and are free. If you are visiting Schio, do take a look at Palazzo Fogazzaro to check its on-going exhibitions.

In the second part of this post, I will talk about installations from the more recent Papermade exhibition held in December 2017.

***

Searching for the red India

Many decades ago, I was visiting a friend's home in Italy. Her young son asked me, "You are not red, why do they call you red Indians?" He had been told that I was from India and the only Indians he had heard about were the red Indians from America.

This post is not about those red Indians. It is about pictures from India where red colour plays a special or dominating role.

I love photography and have thousands of images in my picture archives. Writing this kind of blog-post is an opportunity for me to dig into those archives and in the process, relive my past journeys and the people I had met - a very pleasurable past time!

Among the Indic religions, red is the colour of sacred and of happy occasions like marriages. Let me start this post with a very striking image from a religious ceremony.

1. Theyyam, Kannur, Kerala: The first image of this post (above) is from Kannur in Kerala at the southern tip of India and it is from a Bhagwati theyyam ceremony. "Theyyam" is a Hindu traditional religious rite in which the God comes down to the earth and manifests in the body of a human being. Persons playing Theyyam or the living gods, often belong to the so called "low castes" and while they are the living god, everyone from the community bows to them. Theyyam takes place in the temple and the surrounding courtyards. Most theyyams are dressed in red.

Theyyam is unique for the elaborate makeup and rituals linked with this tradition.

2. Dollu Kanitha, Bangalore, Karnataka: The Dollu Kanitha folk dance from Karntaka. It has persons carrying the god statues on their heads as they come out of their temples and go out in a procession in the community. In this occasion, some of the persons dress up as different gods. The next image has a Dollu Kanitha dancer dressed as one of the gods.

Thus, the idea of God coming down to speak to humans through the medium of a person is not unique to Kannur, rather it is seen in different forms in different parts of India.

3. Person dressed as Goddess Kali, Guwahati, Assam: West Bengal and Assam in the north-east of India have a strong tradition of mother-goddess (Shakti) worship through Saraswati puja, Durga puja and Kali puja. There is also a tradition of persons dressing up as mother Kali, the angry manifestation of the goddess. The next image has a boy dressed as Goddess Kali at the Kamakhaya temple during the Ambubashi festival.

Almost always, the persons taking up the role of gods are men, while women get to play such roles only rarely.

4. Dashhera prayers in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh: Dashhera festival is linked to the story of Ramayana in the north and to the story of goddess Durga in the north-east.

The Dashhera celebrations in Kullu valley surrounded by mountains are different from the rest of India. During this festival, the patron gods and goddesses of mountain villages are brought out of the temples in processions and they travel down to the Kullu valley for their Dushhera holidays. Mountain communities come to live in Kullu with their gods and the whole period is full of religious ceremonies.

The image below shows the chief priest officiating at the Dashhera celebrations in Kullu, praying in front of the deity for the initiation of the festival. As in the above images, the red colour predominates.

5. Hanta Koi statues, Nicobar island: Tribal groups in Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal have a tradition of making wooden statues called Hanta Koi to represent the spirits of dead family members. This reminded me of a similar tradition among the Toraja people in South Sulwezi island of Indonesia, where they call them Moi Moi.

This image comes from the Manas Sanghrahalaya museum in Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), one of the finest museums about the lives, myths and culture of tribal communities in India. I find the red in the caps of the Hanta Koi very striking.

6. Rajasthani puppets, Delhi: While the above five images were linked to religious and spiritual spheres, the remaining five images of this post are non-religious.

The next image is of a puppet from Rajasthan at the Dilli Haat market of Delhi. Rajasthan with its Thar desert, craggy forts and proud people, is also a land of colourful costumes, as seen in the dresses of the puppets, among which red dominates.

7. Monsoon, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh: Monsoons are usually not associated with the red colour, instead they are seen as dark clouds and verdant foliage washed clean of the dust by the rains.

The next image is about the monsoon but it has a man dressed in red, walking in a field. It has a lot of green and very little red, yet I think that the red colour plays a key role in this image.

8. Village woman, Kesla, Madhya Pradesh: The next image is also from the monsoon period in central India and has a village woman surrounded by lush green fields.

The colourful saris of the women in rural areas are the most common source of bright colours in the Indian landscapes.

9. Police women, Guwahati, Assam: Even the khaki uniforms of the Assamese police women can have a nice touch of bright red colour.

10. Lenin statue, Kannur, Kerala: I am concluding this post with another picture from Kerala where red colour is strongly associated with communism and where the communist icons like Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Chairman Mao, forgotten in most of the world, still continue to have some relevance.

Orderly processions of people walking with red flags and shouting slogans to protest against something are ubiquitous in Kerala. This image has the red communist flag along with a paper-mache sculpture of Lenin.

Conclusions

Think of the above ten images about the red colour as part of an Indian thali. They represent the amazing variety, colours and traditions of India.

All over the world, globalisation is helping in spreading a culture where people wear similar clothes, watch similar films and eat similar food. Even in India, the globalisation mono-culture is making in-roads. However, fortunately our diverse and distinctive cultures and traditions continue to be alive, especially in smaller towns and villages. Our challenge over the next decades will be to safeguard these while we embrace other aspects of modernity.

I hope that you will like my selection of images from India where red colour plays a special role. Do tell me which of these red images you liked most!

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Hassan Sharif's art of the useless objects

Before looking at Hassan Sharif's art installations in the Venice Biennale (Italy) last year, I did not know the name of any modern artist from the Arab world. In my mind, Arabic artists were associated with things like calligraphy, flowers and geometric designs, thus I was surprised by his works. This post is about some of the art installations of Hassan Sharif at the Venice Biennale.

Hassan Sharif

Sharif was born in UAE in 1951 and he died in 2016 at the age of 65 years.

He did his art school training in the UK in the 1980s. There, he came in contact with Tam Giles and his ideas of abstract and experimental art, which influenced him. He lived in Dubai where he helped to set up different spaces to promote and support young and upcoming artists of UAE.

Hassan Sharif's art of assemblage

Sharif is known for taking ordinary objects of daily living and assembling them together in big heaps to create his art installations.

His art is seen as a criticism of the prevalent shopping culture, where we need to continuously buy more things, which are then quickly discarded to contribute to the ever-increasing mountains of garbage in our cities.

I think that his art can also be seen as a commentary on the human relationships in today's world, which follow a similar and parallel trajectory to those of the consumer products, where we look for quick emotional highs. Yet we quickly tire of them and discard them, finding it easier to hide behind our smart phones and head-phones.

Sharif's art at Venice Biennale

At the 2017 Biennale, different works of Sharif from different time periods starting from mid-1980s, were brought together to give an overview of his main artistic ideas. This exhibition was called "Supermarket" and included mixed materials such as textiles, papers, iron hardware, books and boxes.

Some of Sharif's installations like the one below with iron hinges and pieces of clothes, look like scraps that you may find in an old dusty store room in your house, yet they express emotions. I felt that they were a reminder to open our eyes and really look at our surroundings instead of sleep-walking through our daily lives - to see the juxtapositions of materials, shapes and colours.

Conclusions

Today, it is not always easy to define art and to understand its boundaries. It is not about artistic skills and mastery, rather it is a way of looking at the world and rediscovering emotions and feelings. Sharif's art is such. For example, look at the assemblage of old files tied together in the image below, which can be a common sight in old Government offices. Sharif makes you look at them in a new way by appreciating their textures and forms.

I want to conclude this post with my personal favourites among all the "assemblages" of Hassan Sharif presented at the Venice Biennale - it has a heap of steel spoons, forks and black plastic tubes. I am not sure if it was because of the bent and misshapen spoons and forks, but it was the installation which evoked the strongest feelings in me.

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