Museum of Goa

http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/NewsDetail.aspx?storyid=13680&date=2016-11-06&pageid=1

                                                   Mog

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.

I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,
Music, the making of a poem
That gave me heaven for an hour;

The poetic reflections by the seaside from the poems of Sara Teasdale and RL Stevenson conjure up the ephemeral sculptural installations of the Goan international artist Subodh Kerkar which dot the coastline in different parts of the globe.  The installation ‘The Moon and the Tides’ depicts a semi-white circle five metres in diameter made up of thousands of shells. The moon poem serenading the tides was painstakingly created by the artist on the coastline of Goa. Within hours, it got washed away with the turn of the tide, as wave upon wave in slow cadence hugged the moon-blanched shore.  The said installation hangs in a photographic frame in the central hall of the Museum of Goa (MOG), telling the truth but telling it slant – of rising and falling human civilizations along the oceans of the world.

Cultural histories of civilizations form footnotes to the works of Subodh Kerkar, the land and conceptual artist. These mneumonic devices help in remembering  past times. The narrative begins with the dialogue between Indus valley civilization and the Greco-Egyptian period and segues into the Indo-European cultural exchanges of trade and religion from 15^th century onwards. The epicenter is the Goan state along the Konkan coast. All through, the ocean remains his co-creator, sculptor and muse. His language is constructed using alphabets of pebbles, shells, sand, coconut and fibre.

Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
in that gray vault. The sea. The sea
has locked them up. The sea is History.

Derek Walcott

Subodh often reminisces of the long walks he took along the sea sands with his father, and how he learnt to listen to the song of the waves. The whisper, leap, roar, crash, break, murmur and stillness of water spoke to him relaying secrets of conquests, trade, war and gods of people who came and went, leaving signs and symbols that they had ‘been there and done that’.

Beginning with his installation on the myth of Parshurama whose arrow made the Arabian Sea recede and created the Konkon coast, he goes on to mark the voyages of Zheng He, the fifteenth century Chinese admiral whose ships were 127m long (the ships of Columbus, Vasco da Gama and other Dutch and Portuguese explorers paled in comparison). The long wooden boat ‘Ulandi’ at MOG mounted with antique Chinese spoons pays homage to the Hui Court mariner. The other large framed photographs of hundreds of fishermen forming a boat or a fishbone echoes the African concept of ‘Ubuntu’ in the mind of the viewer – ‘I am because we are’ – the feeling of communion with each other and nature.

Antique ceramic plates from China and Europe that are encrusted with oyster shells convey a sea story in one of the rooms at the museum. Cotton and Gulmohar trees are presented as installations and narrate the tales of intrigue by explorers and colonizers who described them as ‘trees with tiny lambs at their tips’ and ’sunset at the wrong time and wrong side of the sky’. If indigo and pepper were weighed in gold in India, Chili was the mainstay of Latin America. The Chilli installation, covered with crochet pieces, tells us of its indigenization in Goa far from the South America coast. ‘Bubblegum God’ installation playfully orchestrates the hybridization of religious practices. The amalgamation can also be seen in installations like ‘Jezu-Krishna’ where Krishna’s crown wears a cross in place of the peacock feather. Moving on, the exhibition rocks with jest in ‘Colonial Rock n Roll’, a tongue-in-cheek take on the appearance of toilet paper rolls in Indian washrooms. The quotidian becomes vested with an artistic sensibility and relays a historical bite.

One of the rooms is completely dedicated to his father, Chandrakant Shankar Kerkar, the teacher artist.  The latter’s evocative paintings present socio-economic commentary of the cultural landscape in Goa in the mid-twentieth century.  Besides this, MOG also houses works of other artists from Goa and abroad. The quintessential ‘Caste Thread’ by Kalidas Mhamal is a visceral artwork articulating conversion, psychological upheaval and remnants of ancestral heritage. On the other hand, in lighter vein, is Santosh Morajkar’s sunny yellow pilot motorcycle, marking a ubiquitous fast taxi of the Goan landscape. On the international front, ‘Expanding Structures’ by Rene Fadinger is a metaphysical take on empty space and its potential to morph into new forms. Sebastian Kusenberg’s ‘Pradakshana around St. Anthoy’s Chapel’ marries the language of colliding religions.

Moving on to the platter of activities at the museum - ‘MOG Sundays’ is a highly successful weekly venture, wherein eminent speakers from home and abroad showcase their journeys and generate alternative ideas and debate. The cozy auditorium has a full house with more wanting to get in and participate in the invigorating proceedings. Soon, this event will shift to a space outside the main building next to the workshop at the back with facility to accommodate 200 people. Music performances, art classes and ethnic Goan spreads are other attractive offers on the calendar. MOG is all set to host a series of talks – ‘Kala Vichar’ in collaboration with Raza Foundation, Delhi in the coming year.

Subodh’s pluralistic idea of ‘Art for the people, art by the people’ - has MOG going full throttle to involve the local populace in initiatives to create artistic context in the cultural climate of Goa. That art heals, invigorates and balances our minds thrusts the argument for such a space as necessary condition to the well-being of society. Art in dialogue with literature, philosophy, music and history further expands the horizon of MOG to a liberal construct – which then becomes the ultimate utopian dream. This week when MOG marks its first anniversary, this dream is already becoming a reality!