It starts with an explosion, a roar of anguish. And it ends with silence — a meditation on a grim reality that most choose to brush aside as someone else’s problem.
‘KaBhumM!!!’ at the Kerala Museum in Edappally is like an estuary, where science and art meet. The tidal current here is strong: a clarion call for people to understand the struggles of those living close to the seas.
Art installations, paintings, photographs, performances and discussions, all under one roof, draw attention to the hapless people facing the direct consequences of global warming and climate change.
For them, these are not scientific jargon. It is the haunting reality they wake up to every single day.
Curator and artist Radha Gomati struggles to sum up KaBhumM. “The word KaBhumM… it was like an enlightenment, something that struck me like lightning and left with echoes of thunder. I cannot pinpoint. It came like poignant poetry, just flowed into the deep subconscious,” she says.
As a Kochi resident and having grown up near ports in India and abroad, she has witnessed and experienced climate change and its impact on coastal communities. The philosophy of the exhibition is, therefore, deeply personal to her: “Aazhi, azhi, azhal — the sea, estuary and grief, a grief that is also a fire, burning from within.”
Radha sought to bring together like-minded artists and thinkers who shared a bond with ‘kadal, kayal, and kandal (sea, backwaters and mangroves)’.
“They would understand the kind of burning grief, the struggle of people whose homes and lands are swallowed by the sea,” she says.
The first step in developing the idea of KaBhumM, which can be read as a shortened form of ‘Kalakaranmarude Bhumi Malayalam’ or even ‘Kathunna Bhumi Malayalam’ or, was a workshop held in Edappally in May.
“I gave everyone a story written by
J Devika, a children’s fiction titled Kadalkutty, where the real and the fantastical come together to tell the tale of a little girl in a coastal village. It triggered a discussion,” says Radha.
The effect is palpable at KhaBumM. A tiny house threatened by tidal waves, inundated and filled with damaged goods, welcomes visitors to the exhibition. Physical and video installations turn this house and the people inhabiting it into a reality inside the Kerala Museum.
Nearby is artist and photographer S Hariharan’s work titled ‘Welcome to Kochi’. An installation of seven photographs kept in glass jars, each half-filled with seawater. “As the exhibition progresses, the photographs will be destroyed by the saline water, like the lives on the shore,” he says.
Behind the jars are T S Eliot’s lines: ‘This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper’.
“The lives on our coast are like that. They suffer silently under our watch,” says Hariharan.
Next up inside is what Radha calls “an illumination” by artist Babitha Rajiv. It is a series of installations, illustrations and paintings inspired by ‘Kadalkutty’.
“That story resonated with me. The little girl, her dog, the house under threat… My own house has been facing the brute power of tidal surges since 2008. Global warming, since then, has been personal,” Babitha says.
A half-open trunk box filled with memorabilia — a globe, a doll, a pet dog’s photo, seashells — is central to her work. “All from my childhood,” she smiles.
The exhibition is packed with many such personal and political works. A hanging motorcycle loaded with household items reflects the imagery of people fleeing the coast in panic.
As one proceeds, the lines “when the coast cries, it sheds no tears…” reverberates from another corner. Pandit Karuppan’s song, rendered by artist Sunil Vallarpadam, sets the tone for the latter’s series of small watercolour paintings of pregnant women, salt-soaked feet, writings, plants, dogs, household objects.
Similarly striking is photographer Biju Ibrahim’s video installation, with Sree Narayana Guru’s ‘Ardhanariswara Stavam’ presented in the background like Kathakali padam by Kalamandalam Sudheesh. Images of Gurudevan, the Buddha, and the people of Tamil Nadu’s coastal hamlets.
Through these, KaBhumM ultimately seeks to draw attention to the coastal communities of Kochi. Their suffering in silence.
With over 50 artists, performers, writers, architects, scientists and community organisations, KaBhumM drops the climate timebomb bang in the middle of the ‘mainland’. An explosion to meditate on.
Exhibition concluded on Oct 19
