KOCHI:It was once a bustling commercial space on Bazaar Road in Mattanchery town. Today, weeds are growing through the cracks on the walls and floor of the room.
“We came across this plot during a stroll. There was this window which piqued our curiosity. The nature that we saw through the window gave us the inspiration to create the installation,” shares Australian artiste, Louise Rippert, whose work mostly focuses on re-interpretation of traditional meditation forms. Affected by the sight, she, along with fellow Australian William Eicholtz, and Malayalee Narayanan Mohanan, have converted the room into an installation, ‘Renew’, where they have used nature and concrete to explain the concept of co-existence between man and nature.
The first task at hand for the artists was to remove the garbage and cut through the fully-grown weeds to pave a path. In the middle of the room, they have placed a peanut vendor’s cart, from where a well-lit tree, made of plastic, has been ‘planted’.
“The tree represents the circle of life. Also, it is a symbol of the Christian ‘tree of everlasting life’, which forced Eve and Adam to sin. As for the peanut vendors’ cart, it is an indisputable part of life in Kochi,” said William, who has specialised in creating unique contemporary figurative sculptures. According to the artists, their aim is to convey the idea that man can live in co-existence with nature without exploiting it. “Once humans stopped their activities in the room, nature reclaimed the area, which is a very important truth,” William adds.
As part of the project, the artists have also planted piggy-back plants and bougienvillas in the room. Narayanan shares that they also plan to plant sesame seeds. “It’s symbolic of life and death,” shares Narayanan, who crossed paths with the two artists due to their shared interests. Louise and William are part of the Indo-Australian cultural exchange programme. Their recent project, ‘Lights across the Sea’, a residency project where they worked hand in hand with traditional artisans residing within Varanasi’s old city district, was well-appreciated by the Australian government.
For the project, the artists had collaborated with statue makers and even gained permission to install three large and illuminated Mandala ‘wall works’ in the busy lanes of the old city. “We came down to Kochi with a similar intention. However, the mood and culture of Varansi are very different to that of Kochi. As artists, we believe in creating art from what is available and we are very happy with what we have found,” shares Louise. The artists also plan to make a short film on the installation as well as the city of Kochi soon.