Personal narrative: roots – encountering new boundaries from a visual artist’s perception
Chapter Eight-Localising Asia in Aotearoa, Dunmore Publishing, NZ 2011
Personal narrative: roots – encountering new boundaries from a visual artist’s perception
The two most significant aspects of encountering new boundaries are dislocation and association, both geographically and socially. A displacement in location not only transposes our physical entities but also transforms our consciousness about all that has been accumulated and absorbed in the course of time, from people we have met and places in which we have lived. Being a visual artist and an educator, this displacement proposes an artistic response, both in my art practice and my teaching of art.
I was born to a working-class second-generation Christian convert family in southern India, and faced the challenges of being a Christian and accepting religious beliefs introduced by the British missionaries during colonisation, while negotiating with the national and regional religions and cultures of India. My exposure to a multicultural and multi-religion environment stirred my understandings about life into a philosophical inquiry that took form in a recent installation, De-mark in France (Duppati, 2009a). Celebrating and embracing the cultural and religious differences (of being an Indian Christian minority) was a necessary life undertaking (just as it was for the rest of the nation, which came under the influence of the British).
Terms of cultural engagement, whether antagonistic or affiliative, are produced performatively. The representation of difference must not be hastily read as the reflection of pre-given ethnic or cultural traits set in the fixed tablet of tradition. The social articulation of difference, from the minority perspective, is a complex, on-going negotiation that seeks to authorize cultural hybridities that emerge in moments of historical transformation. (Homi Bhabha quoted in graves, 1998)
In the nineteenth century, the British established European-style schools that emphasized academic realism. Students were instructed to draw from casts of classical models, and value was placed on verisimilitude. Instead of encouraging a continuation or revitalization of Indian arts and crafts, the British educational system, along with European products, cultivated an educated Indian elite with European tastes. Indian traditions were supplanted by a singular notion of European modernity (Subramanian, 1987). This may still be found in some fine art schools in India, but most of the state and national art schools have revised their curriculum to align with international educational standards. When pursuing my Masters in Fine arts in the Faculty of Fine arts, Maharaja sayaji rao University, Baroda (a prestigious art school in India), I studied both Western and eastern philosophies and theories in art. This enabled me to develop a holistic view of art practices, which informed my own practice as an artist. Perhaps this is an aspect of my education, which not only contributed to my ability to relate to the expected standards of visual arts education in New Zealand, but also allowed me to appreciate different international artistic perceptions.
‘We-us-our’ and ‘Maps, Metaphors and Mythologies’, installation,
Dunedin Fringe Festival, 2007 and tamarind art, New York, 2007.
Contemporary Indian art practices, since the postcolonial period, are culturally diverse, with tradition and modernity often merging into the production of a hybrid art form. Besides drawing upon a rich cultural tradition, Indian artists in the postcolonial period embraced internationalism, which localized the European abstractionist and American Abstract Expressionist styles into Indian art practices. Such internationalism also finds its counterpart in traditional revivalist art movements in Indian art history.[i]1 within the context of internationalism there are two different trends. Some Indian artists reacted to the external influences by reclaiming a specific national identity, while others were eager to absorb new cultural perspectives.
Overall, contemporary Indian artists practising in India are conscious about their national identity in relation to the contemporary art world. Yet, attempting to find correspondence between international art concepts and local practices has always been quite challenging for Indian artists. This is even greater for Indian artists residing abroad as they are caught up in a tussle between absorbing and resisting the new cultures outside their homeland. could their challenge be identified as global intervention on the Indian artists? Or is it a broader condition that characterizes most immigrant artists, consciously or unconsciously? It is up to every artist to address the issues of cultural politics in an international context at a personal level.
My early years of art practice in India (1995–2000), addressed some personal issues around the self, which led me into a quest for an artistic existence. A deep contemplative phase manifested itself into the ‘other’ world in one of my early installations, My Minds Wank (Duppati, 1995). The later part of my art practices in Africa involved exposure to international art scenes and work experiences that enabled my artwork to evolve as a process to reflect my perceptions of a spiritual life.
Relocating from northeast Africa [ii] to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2006 was not only an exciting aspect of my nomadic life, but it also gave me a telescopic view of India. My primary reason for migrating to
What became important to my art practice was to respond to the New Zealand culture while reviewing what I brought in terms of thoughts, values and experiences from my previous international experiences. This process of internalizing the perceptions motivated my nomadic life (which began in 1987) into being a simple, adventurous and spiritual journey for consciousness in How I Met My Soul (Duppati, 2007b), while sharing my artistic experiences at a mundane level. Just like our ancestors who explored their surroundings, moved by curiosity and a desire to expand their horizons, possibly with a hope for immortality and eternity, I too crossed regions, states, nations and seas to explore the new boundaries associated with different languages, places, cultures and people, and – I believe – rediscovered what it meant to be human for me.[iii]
In the process of experiencing life we have all perhaps started to redefine our being as human. According to Stanley Diamond, ‘primitive is both a historical phase in man’s career, and an existential aspect of its being’ (Wolf, 1974, pp. xiii). In order to position our decisions which we created with alternatives that are open to choices, the human’s triple task is to comprehend and see this world just as a primitive would do; to understand it and link it to the unexpressed aspect of our human nature.
Coming to New Zealand was a temporary displacement between my origins and my birth. I felt uprooted, as the distance shortened my memories of India but also connected them to the new context. To me, human connectivity as an existing phenomenon operates in many and various means and modes. In a larger perspective, although we are all individuals, we are undoubtedly connected, either physically (bodies), mentally (transcendental), metaphysically (mind), virtually (perceptually), or just by the imaginative powers of fantasy and manifestation.
We are in the epoch of simultaneity; we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed. We are at a moment, I believe, when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein. (Foucault, 1967)
The ‘I’ becomes ‘we-us-our’ (Duppati, 2007a; 2007c) and our identity is shared by recognizing and accepting that we are each part of the wider human network and that the idea of connectedness is deeper than a race, ethnicity, gender or geographical location. The alienated feeling of consciousness in ‘being’ associated and distanced to something and someone has underpinning implications to the contradicting phenomenology of life as expounded in contradictory ways by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger.[iv] The repercussions of our actions and their effects are also connected to each of us in the most subconscious states of mind. There are divergent directions in our forces and energies in life; these can be interpreted as natural, humanistic or materialistic intentions of human desire. One of my performances, Devolution, examines our transcendental association within histories and cultures and aims at recognizing this association as the very basis of human condition (Duppati, 2008).
The situation of experiencing various cultures from my Indian, eastern perspective has enabled me to think about existing human conditions in new Zealand and the possibilities for spiritual growth that relate to the collective unconscious as expounded by Carl Gustavo Jung in his archetypes. What makes sense to me is Jean Paul Sartre’s existentialist statement, ‘we are not what we are and we are what we are not’ (Sartre, 1956, p. vii). My journeys to India, the United states and Europe each year resulted in art shows that showcased various ideas and concepts referring to various cultures that are connected to my past. My thoughts, concepts and ideas in art practice became more eclectic in nature while still aiming at reflecting the universal in art. I have begun to make sense of the universal in art, nature and Life. Understanding new cultures and histories from a Universalist perspective has become the subject of my research. Form and content in my work are therefore based on the fundamental existential issues of life. The human condition is shaped by society; social values are therefore embedded and crafted into it, and societies and cultures are under constant transformation. The contradictory nature of human existence that is in constant tension between its universal transcendent nature and its added social and
‘Devolution #1 and #2’, Live Performance, Dunedin 2008, India 2009.
cultural values make this world into a paradoxical theatre. My attention is uncontrollably drawn towards the politics of contemporary lifestyles as they are developed in history.Relocating my cultural identity in relation to New Zealand was a task that I began to explore in the art of daily living. Just as every immigrant would perhaps become an anthropologist for a while in a new place or country, my first priority was to identify New Zealand cultural identity. Mundane everyday events, which can turn into formulaic episodes of a culture, became my source of visual data. Within these events, my observations focused on my daily experiences of meeting people; acting/interacting, communicating/confusing, clarifying/ obscuring, exchanging/dividing, enjoying/lamenting, connecting/disconnecting and learning/unlearning. Understanding New Zealand identity not only meant looking beyond the bicultural establishments of indigenous Maori and European settling or colonising agreements, but also meant to recognize various cultural and economic contributions and participation of Pacific islanders, Indians and south Asians (Poot and Cochrane, 2004). All of those contributions and participations have brought a major shift in New Zealand’s cultural transformation and identity, making it a multicultural country.
Within these dynamics, my attention was drawn towards the treaty of Waitangi, which still stands as a living document of agreement between indigenous Maori and the British crown. Indigenous Maori land is a significant element to Maori identity; hence issues about distribution of ownership were raised when and where the treaty was made effective by the British governance. The sense of possession and belonging meant different things to the parties who signed the treaty. The treaty was supposed to establish and balance the British crown’s sovereign power by assuring and offering security, support and assurance of well-being of the Maori people. Yet such balance was not achieved.
As a result, the issue of whether the treaty rests on an agreement that balance the issues of colonising, occupying, authorizing, controlling, governing and maintaining with those of sharing, securing, providing, facilitating and allowing freedom remains a crucial one. Despite this crucially unresolved issue, the indigenous Maori, the Europeans and other people from different ethnic backgrounds should all have equal rights as members (citizens) of the New Zealand nation. If traditions, values, beliefs, customs and heritage define a culture, then the issue of ownership may also depend on the cross-cultural interventions in which the role of a citizen needs to be addressed. It is in this context that I view my own multicultural background within New Zealand multi-ethnic community, in which a growing new hybrid generation is also born
‘How I met my soul’, installation, tamarind art, New York, 2007.
from the marriage between the indigenous Maori and European, and other settlers. Indigenous identity and values are shared in this new context, which could either generate a new hybrid culture or establish a universal idea of human advancement. In other words, the process of hybridization that connects us in multiple ways may have the power to ‘devolutionize’ the process of human evolution to its genesis, by narrowing – instead of amplifying – traditional and cultural differences. Nonetheless, my sense of belonging to the place and people remains associated to the accepted and shared values within any given space. De-mark in France and De-mark in India (Duppati 2009a; 2009b) attempt to address some of these issues of colonisation, occupancy, settlements, immigrations/migrations, political dominance, power, authority, rule, governance and capitalistic notions and intentions of human behaviour.
The politics of space defined by the rules of ‘power’ become operational in territorializing places; assigning them with the status that befits those who dominate, as a race, gender or culture. Spaces are assigned with an intrinsic material value that defined the human existential dogma. It has always played a dominating role in locating, disseminating, addressing and percolating issues relating to invasions, occupations and settlements. This has inevitably evoked a sense of distance-proximity and familiar-alienation, demarcating the spaces into places with imaginary boarders [sic] and boundaries that are at times political and extraneous to the human existential needs for life.5
De-mark, MSU Baroda India 2009.
Our lives are centred on the spiritual, philosophical, and religious interventions and ideologies, which sometimes politically dominate and control our lives and can become dogmas. A constructed evidence of this process is our history. Human beings are gifted with a desire to process and derive information beyond our capacity to safely handle it. Sometimes it might be better to evoke the spiritual in us to outlive this traumatic history, which initiated civilization some thousands of years ago.[v]
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[i] The term internationalism in modern Indian art history is used to contextualize cross- cultural influences brought into India during the early 1970s by artists who went to the United states and Europe on cultural exchange programmes. Traditional revivalist art movement initiated the Bengal school in the early twentieth century before independence. Internationalism in India is derived from the avant-garde art of the 1950s and is different from the European influences, which came into India with British colonisation.
[ii] I worked at the Asmara school of Fine art, Ministry of education, in Eritrea, from 2000 to 2006.
[iii] From Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, to Hyderabad in India during 1987, to Eritrea during 2000, new Zealand in 2006, with a few visits to the Middle east and the United states in 2007 and Europe in 2009.
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