It’s hard to not take a stand on a subject you know too well. Artist As an art educator for over two decades, everything Indira Purkayastha Ghosh says about making children a priority, effectively resonates. The world, she believes, requires nothing more earnestly than to guard the future of its children. As evident in her new body of sculptural work in wood titled No Childs Play. Artists today are driven by many things, but children hardly form an inspiration.
“Some are driven by beauty, others by fame or politics. Our seniors carried the burden of history and nation-building. But what about our children? For me it’s about carrying the baton of righteousness in all matters concerning them,” says the 48-year-old artist, who learnt art under acclaimed modern sculptor Balbir Singh Katt at Banaras Hindu University.
For Ghosh, it’s been a planned effort to stay away from installation art that, of late, has begun to supplant sculptural art. The artist amalgamates features of central Indian tribal sculptures with child art and Indian modernism to create ethnographic dial o g u e s e x p r e s s i n g melancholia. Dreaming Inside A Shell shows a child finding shelter under her father’s helmet to escape social and academic pressures.
“My daughter inspired me to make this one as I observed her withdrawal from reality to survive the pressures surrounding her,” she says. Another important lesson from her daughter came in an eponymously titled work. It shows her daughter dressed as an adult in a sari, teaching her mother ways of accepting every child’s individuality instead of overwhelming them with mountains of expectations. “When she was little, I was very hard on her. I wanted her to know all the subjects well.
But when I became a teacher, I realised every child is different and this makes them all special.” Gods Best Creation is a rack of shirts hanging on a stand, a reminder for parents to never forget that their children are precious and no societal weight shouldn’t come in the way of nourishing them. In Dog on a leash, she portrays how we kill a child’s imagination by tying them down to convention. “Uniqueness cannot thrive under pressure. The leash personifies the shackling of dreams,” says the artist. Requesting everyone to understand and facilitate a creative world for children is at the centre of her art. “Our education system has destroyed creativity. It’s all about coming first, and beginning August, another race will start – admissions.
Let’s make this a time to reflect on how we are shaping their future,” says Ghosh who is now a teacher herself, but before she imparts any learning to them, she starts with herself thus making this journey of understanding children a more comprehensive one.
No Childs Play, from August 1-7, from 11 am to 7 pm, at Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Center, Lodhi Road.