REFLECTIONS: Cauvery/ KHOJ -2002 Mysore
Courtesy: http://khojworkshop.org/book/export/html/1354
Mysore Khoj-2002, Michel Tuffrey
The Cauvery water issue and pelting rain “engrossed” the artists of the Khoj-2002 workshop at Mysore.
The dispute to share the waters of the river Cauvery between two Indian states dates back to the British raj period when the two states (Karnataka and Tamil Nadu) were not divided on linguistic basis. Regardless of a good monsoon, Karnataka was bound to share the river water with its neighbour. The farmers of Mandya, Maddur and Mysore district in Karnataka were the ones who were affected the most. When the state failed to solve this water shortage problems due to shortage of rainwater, the farmers tried to resolvethe matter by not sharing the water at all! But the state was pressurized by the Central govt to maintain the sharing as usual. Agitated farmers blocked the main roads (for almost a month) between Mysore and Bangalore in protest. It was a metaphoric disconnection between the traditional rural space and the resultant urbanized localities. The dispute resulted in the deaths of many innocent farmers.
Against this stark background which erupted suddenly , its influence became a “theme” for some participants, a “suggestion” for a creative process and provided the obvious “media” for some other artists.
Mysore Khoj-2002, Hema Upadhyay
By the time the artists from various countries had assembled at the workshop venue of Olive Gardens , the issue at hand insiduously “affected” their very functioning at Mysore, be it their xenophobic condition or a search for an artistic statement. Even the “absence” of the issue in a few artists works made its “presence” felt in a powerful way.
At a time when farmers fromboth Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were being pawned by the politicians on either side, artist Sarat Kumara Siri diligently addressed the issue as it was picturised by the media: Newspaper clippings along with visuals of politicians were collaged together in a particular way; Christoph Stortz worked with the weed parthenium creating a a path reminiscent of rangoli patterns. Interestingly, parthenium is the main enemy of a farmer in this geographic location.
In yet another work, the artist Hema Upadhya wrote a letter to her parents on the ground with the seed raagi; a the staple food of the farmers , raagi is basically grown by farmers who have pawned their living/lives to the “moods” of river Cauvery. This is no mere metaphorical statement, for the weather, rain, politics, emotions, disputes and hence the creative and philosophic moorings of people of the two neighbouring States literally depends on this mood.
When Carla Guagliardi created two interlinked semi circular brick walls, they formed the imaginary boundary that seggretaged as well as united space - a metaphoric interpretation
Today the factual details about the distribution of the Cauvery waters is somewhat blurred by fiction. A fiction, rooted in truth but which has morphed into being the root-cause for all political clashes in the region.
The gap between art and life dissolved when a 3 hour journey from Banglaore to Mysore extended into an 8 hours drive through the rugged plains of rural India. The artists compulsorily explored the flavour of rural Karnataka, a river and its politics creating a “Cauvery-Khoj” at Mysore.///