KOCHI: A travelogue, on a canvas, telling the stories of the people, past and present, of a particular place. Artist Bara Bhaskaran has beautifully brought out the emotions of the subjects through a series of sketches arranged to imitate the look of a museum at the ongoing Kochi Muziris Biennale at Aspinwall House in Fort Kochi.
Bhaskaran is a contemporary visual artist and a chronicler of subaltern histories. Born in Bara, a village in Kasaragod, he is now based in Kochi.“I don’t dwell on the architectural history.
The ones represented by the monuments or buildings, but on local history. I am interested in people who have never found a mention in history,” says Bhaskaran.He advances his narrative through a series of frames, each one comprising drawings and texts. While the drawings are chosen from his travel sketch-book, the texts are constructed from an assortment of historical sources and ethnographic observations, his own as well as those of others.
“My works are mostly based on Kerala history. They are mostly done in the form of a travelogue. I began this in 2000,” says Bhaskaran.
According to him, contemporary history is what matters. “The lives, lifestyle and culture of the poor are the ones I try to portray in my landscapes,” he says.
Bhaskaran calls his installation the ‘Amazing Museum’. The installation begins with the portrait of four tribes. “I obtained the material from old photographs published in a book brought out in 1911,” he explains. The next frame has drawings from his sojourn in Bihar. “Bihar is an historically important place. Gaya, the place where Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment, is located here. Magadha, which was ruled by Ashoka is also in Bihar. It is also the rice basket of the country.
I have tried to highlight the plight of the those who form the lower strata of the society in the state,” he says. The landscape on Bihar describes the constant struggle of those who live and farm along the coast of the Ganga, he says. Bhaskaran has brought out several books, too. ‘My Kerala Chronicles: A visual travelogue’, ‘Mother Forest: The unfinished story of C K Janu’ and ‘Adukala’ are a some of his works. “The book on Janu tells the story of the hardships of the tribals in the forest of Wayanad. I have focused not on the person but the entire community,” he says.
According to Bhaskaran, the plight of the downtrodden has not changed. Everywhere it is the same, both in the past and the present.