What comes from the earth, eventually goes back to it. The ongoing Indian Ceramics Triennale in Delhi would want visitors to mull over that. Now in its second edition, the four floors of Arthshila, Okhla, where it is being held, are filled with exhibits made with materials ranging from clay and ceramic to dried cow dung cakes or ‘gobar uplas’.
At a time when ‘sustainability’ is a buzzword, the sprawling exhibition, which includes functional objects like pots and cisterns made by artisans from villages across the country to more ‘gallery installations’ by national and international artists, reminds us of the primordial closeness of man and mud, of our close and tactile collaborations with the earth itself.
The Triennale presents the works of over 40 artists, and is set up around the theme of ‘Common Ground’. “We are separated by politics, history and privilege... yet we are bound by a common humanity and a co-dependent future. Common Ground is a metaphorical and literal exploration of this ground upon which we meet,” reads the curatorial note.
TMS joined in on a curator-led walkthrough of the exhibition to find out why and how the artists wrought these pieces out of perhaps the ‘rawest’ of materials -- the ground we walk on. Here are a few artworks that caught our eye, and our interest.
7 Kumbhar potters
‘Works in terracotta’
A set of Kachchhi (Gujarat) terracotta pots of various sizes and shapes, with intricate patterns. “These works look at the language of mark-making. They were made by the younger generation Kumbhar potters, some of whom had gone to Dubai for over 17 years and then came back to make these traditional pots again, to understand these patterns that had been passed on to them,” says Vineet Kacker, an artist and co-curator of the Triennale. The broken half of a large cistern is also on display. “The potters were very particular about presenting this as well because it is so much about the story of their lives,” he adds.
Deepak Kumar
‘Warning Line’
An almost five-foot-high skeleton of a bird, made with ceramic, hangs from the ceiling. The curtains of the glass wall behind the work are intentionally left open, and right next door, the construction of a building is in full swing, in real time. Kumar is a multidisciplinary artist from Bihar-now settled in Greater Noida-who focuses on ecology. “I wanted to present the effect of unbridled urbanisation on the lives of other living beings we share our habitat with,” he says. His drawing on stone mounted on the wall, which presents a dismembered bird trapped in the lines of an intricate blueprint of a city, is thought-provoking.
Creative Dignity,
‘Lost and Found’
Contemporary ceramic artists Raju Sutar and Rajesh Kulkarni collaborated with indigenous potter communities of Warak in Maharashtra and Kutch in Gujarat for the art initiative, Creative Dignity, to present a set of clay utensils and objects. For the duo, the installation is a way of bringing art and craft together. “Lost and Found draws on the old Hindi movie trope of two brothers who lose each other and are eventually reunited. For the artists, the brothers are art and craft. They wanted to bring the craft of these potters from the villages to present them in art spaces,” says Kacker.
Birender Kumar Yadav
‘Re-Presented From the Traces’
Yadav’s work presents objects like hammers, pick-axes, and several other tools, folded clothes, water containers, and even detached limbs, all made of clay. They are finely moulded to look true to life in their shapes but by intentionally leaving them unpainted, the artist seems to call attention to the material that was used. The work documents the lives of migrant brick kiln workers in the city of Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh. It presents the things that are left behind by these predominantly lower-caste workers at their temporary houses that are torn down when they leave after their seasonal and excruciating labour ends.
Yulia Repina
‘Self-portrait, Fears’
German artist Yulia Repina’s work is perhaps the most ‘modern’ at the exhibition. She has crafted 17 busts in porcelain of half-human, half-fairytale-like creatures; all the heads sport expressions of distress in varying degrees. “These sculptures were made during the pandemic and are about the fears that populated the artist’s mind,” says Kacker. The exhibit has a Virtual Reality (VR) facility attached to it, and viewers can get into a VR landscape where the busts assume larger-than-life proportions and are many more in number. “The artist wanted to show how fears multiply and fill up the mind when one is alone,” says Kacker.
Indian Ceramics Triennale is on at Arthshila, B-19/1, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase 2, till March 31