Memories, Medium, or Message? Art as mirror to a world in transition

“Artists are not just mirrors but actually makers of the world,” said award-winning artist Shilo Shiv Suleman at The Hindu Huddle, in a session titled ‘Memories, Medium, or Message? Art as a mirror to a world in transition’, moderated by Narayan Lakshman, Opinion Editor, The Hindu, and Curator, The Hindu Huddle.

Ms. Suleman, who shared the stage with artist Seema Kohli and art collector Abhishek Poddar at this session, spoke at some length about her work with the Fearless Collective, which was founded in 2012 in response to the protests that raged through Delhi in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya rape and murder that same year. “When I went for my first-ever protest, I felt this wave of rage and power and beauty. Simultaneously, many of the stories we were seeing in the newspapers were rooted in fear. It felt like we needed a counter-force,” she recalls, describing the genesis of the collective, which “began in protest and turned into a flood of beauty”.

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Delving into the vision, impact, and future of the Fearless Collective, which has so far painted multiple murals in 25 countries, she concludes that its “power really comes alive in moments of fear and trauma”. Art, in these kinds of situations, she believes, is not only beautiful and transformative but also deeply subversive “because it does not speak the same language that traditional activism does”.

The significance of art was explored in various ways during the session, with the panellists offering their perspectives in response to Dr. Lakshman’s opening question. “When societies undergo profound change, they do more than pass laws, build institutions and develop technologies. They tell stories about themselves…remember, understand, create meaning,” he said, adding that it is at this point that art enters the conversation. Alluding to the session’s title, whether art is about the memories, the medium, or the message and clarifying that he is not attempting to set up an artificial distinction between them, he asked the panellists, “Between these three dimensions — memory, medium or message — if you had to pick one that resonates most closely with your life and practice, what would it be?”

For Ms. Kohli, “Art becomes a memory. I really tap into the conscious, subconscious and unconscious or even layers under. That is the way I go into it; a very simple dialogue I have with myself,” she said, while Ms. Suleman talked about the medium. Even though she is now no longer based in Bengaluru, “true to my inner Bangalore girl, I still continue to engage with technology pretty deeply.”

For Mr. Poddar, however, “It is really meaning more than anything else… For me, artists have also lived on the edge of society, being able to, through their work, say stuff that people like you and me are not easily able to say. That is the importance that I look for in art.”

Other aspects of art that were discussed by the panellists included: the role of art institutions, how art must respond to a shifting socio-political landscape, whether it is inherently elitist, its power to shape collective opinion, and how it can create a middle ground in a deeply polarised world. “I think that is really what is missing right now, a collective emotional middle ground where a multitude of realities and identities can co-exist in a public space. I see that being very active shapeshifting that we as artists can do,” said Ms. Suleman.