These are bad times for cultural traditionalists. Anish Kapoor collaborated with Absolut vodka, Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Metallica teamed up with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Genres and forms are getting entangled and spilling into each other, and perhaps it is within this liminal, discombobulating space that the most powerful insights flash upon us.
Junoon has situated its new workshop squarely within this cross-pollinating realm. The arts workshop, titled Tapestry, threads together philosophy, science, politics, geography and history in an interactive programme. In the offing is a mix of city walks, performances, masterclasses, readings and such that will help open a portal into the city’s memory. “If you want to do [the] arts workshop, you need to move across the city, to Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and Chabbildas School, which are otherwise not connected spaces,” says Sameera Iyengar, co-founder of Junoon. “There are so many threads in Mumbai (which is also why the name ‘tapestry’ came through) that weave together into a larger experience. Therefore, we’ve incorporated a library in Bandra, a science institute (TIFR), Chhabildas School and CSMVS.”
She says that knowledge is not just verbal or visual, communication is also very experiential. “All that together opens up doors and windows of understanding in your brain,” says Iyengar. In her opinion, when participants will go through the workshop, they will see the connections between things. “For us, the arts are not disconnected. They are part and parcel of everything else, another kind of engagement that expands our horizons,” she says.
This refusal to stay within neat, delineated boxes is very much the point of the workshop. “The idea is to look at cross-pollinators, to look at people who do not conform to these boxes and compartments,” says Tanvi Shah, the curator of Tapestry . For instance, at TIFR, Tapestry features Gieve Patel, a painter, talking to Jaikumar Radhakrishnan, a theoretical computer scientist, about the significance of a Raza and a Husain. The curator likens it to going to a used bookstore where “all the genres are a bit mixed up and you find things you didn’t know you were looking for”. “I go on Amazon, I know precisely what book I want to buy.”
Shah has drawn together a clutch of brilliant people to helm each session, from Radhakrishnan to Vidita Vaidya, a neuroscientist and professor at TIFR; city historian Rafique Baghdadi and Arundhathi Subramaniam, arts journalist, curator and poetry editor, also take part. Each brings with them a very distinct voice. “The voices in this workshop will be contradictory in a huge way; they will disagree, and we think that is extremely important,” says Iyengar. “They occupy some very strong stances and you’ll be challenged to find your own, because they are not stances that are going to sit easily together.”
Of course, the primary essence of Tapestry is engagement. “This information may be found online, but it is not about the information, really,” says Shah. After all, we’d only be able to access the finished works of these people. “You’d have access to their poem, play or painting, but you would not have access to the way they think, the very specific lens they use,” says the curator. “For instance, Kiran (Nagarkar) believes that the essence of the entire human condition can be accessed through the Mahabharata and the Ramayana . He believes that if I question them enough, question the Iliad and the Odyssey , I will find the answers to everything I need.”
Shah and Iyengar hope that this up-close-and-personal engagement with the arts and the artists helps the participants unspool a chain of shared revelations.
“Any response, any thought, there has to be a sharing. That is the point of the work we do,” says Iyengar. “You are living in times of consumption; people are receivers. How do you offer something that does not allow for passive reception?” Subsequently, the workshop is specifically designed for these times, to have an impact.
To this end, all 30 participants will be required to present a piece within the purview of writing, illustration or any kind of visual, at the end of the workshop. The idea is that engaging with this tangle of artists and scientists should lead to a clotting of ideas that help form your own place in the cultural landscape of the city. “So much of the workshop is also about expression,” says Shah. “At the end of it, can you come to your own understanding or can you make connections, cross-pollinate, create your own piece?”
Tapestry , and by extrapolation, even Junoon, grew out of a need to stay connected to the arts, no matter where in life you are; all it asks of its participants is that they be curious, think laterally and be willing to share. No prior knowledge is required. So far, there are a few spaces in this city that allow for this kind of community.
Shah recalls George Mallory’s famous quote (when asked why he climbed Mt. Everest), “Because it’s there”. So why are they doing this workshop? “Because it’s not there.”
The workshop will be held on November 4, 5, 6, 11, 12 and 13. Participants are required to fill in an application form on tinyurl.com/Tapestry-Application by October 23. Fridays: 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Saturdays & Sundays: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Registration at Rs. 7,500 or Rs. 5,000 for students 18 and above.
For details: www.junoontheatre.org / edgar@junoontheatre.org | 9833344173
The author is a freelance writer
The idea is
to look at cross-pollinators, to look
at people who do not conform to these boxes and compartments
Tanvi Shah,curator ofTapestry
