Memories, bitter, sweet, or both, have a tendency to become entwined in the places they were formed. And if you were to think of one place that holds most Bengalureans’ memories – where children run around on school trips, couples steal a moment alone, and the elderly come for peace and quiet – Cubbon Park comes to mind. It is this interconnectedness between Cubbon Park and the people whose memories are entwined within it, that Bengaluru-based artist Karthika Sakthivel seeks to explore with her project Sonic Picnics – a quilt that tells these stories to anyone with a moment to sit, touch a patch of fabric, and listen.
Created with the aid of a grant from the India Foundation for the Arts, the installation is set to be open to viewers on Sunday at Cubbon Park. “We’ve found some amazing stories. Someone shared a story of finding a dead dog, cremating it and coming back to plant a tree in its memory; another, a sweeper, got street-cast for a movie here; one guy had a first date here that lasted over 12 hours and the couple saw their first sunrise here, with light rushing through the leaves and dew. There was also a man who manages the public restroom who sang for us! It’s lovely to see these meaningful connections people make with nature and each other,” she says.
Sharing the origins of this project, which started with her work on a jacket that tells oral histories at The British Library, Sakthivel says, “We were trying to figure out how to get visitors to engage with oral histories. People don’t want to put on headphones and stare at a wall, so how do we create an embodied listening experience?” The answer, applied to Cubbon Park, was to collect stories from people and weave them together over a year. “What we’re trying to do here is capture present day experiences and future aspirations that people have for the park by communally weaving together a picnic blanket that is interactive. We got people to come to workshops, listen to the 24 stories we’ve curated, and start stitching onto the patch. Some, saw us and just joined in!” says Sakthivel.
How exactly does the blanket work and make this interactive experience happen? Through the magic of smart fabric, explains Sakthivel. “I’m using conductive fabric, thread, and an entire circuit is concealed under the fabric so you can’t tell it’s there. But when you touch a particular story, it plays the audio in the headphones. At any point, five people will be able to sit or lie down on it.”
With Cubbon Park being a thriving spot for community events and clubs, bringing people of all classes together, Sakthivel hopes that the project will act as a conduit that encourages a culture of people listening to one another. “We talk a lot about storytelling but there’s not as much of a culture for story-listening. Through this, we want to create a culture where people slow down, sit down, and actually listen. Listening in a group is different from listening alone – you can see how many different stories exist and how many different people use a public space.”