KOCHI: A wall is not just brick and mortar. It represents a region’s culture and the technology employed in its construction.
In a matter of pride for residents, a wall of Government Fisheries LP School at Kadalundi will adorn Wall House, a dream project executed by Vikram Divecha, a visiting assistant professor in Arts and Art History at the New York University in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Though the school was established in 1921, the wall selected for the Wall House project is only 26 year old. The building was constructed using laterite stone in 1999, but the authorities decided to demolish it as it was declared unfit.
“‘Wall House’ is envisioned as an indoor centre encasing hundreds of walls and facade sections extracted from buildings slated for demolition across the globe. In this undertaking of an urgent ‘archiving of the present’, each wall is selected by local communities and researchers, a process of shifting of authorship that challenges the notion of traditional museology,” Vikram told TNIE.
“At its core, these walls are about people. Once released from architecture, they hold the potential of being reborn as a ‘social object’. Each wall serves as a starting point for expansive sociocultural mappings of time and place. The wall fragments stand in as bearers of histories — of tenants, infrastructure, materiality, aesthetics, and culture. A gift to the future, these community of walls will become ambassadors of an alternative and inclusive cultural history,” he explained. Vikram said he always knew a wall from Kerala will hold special meaning for Malayalis in the UAE.
“It was fate that I was approached by the Faizal and Shabana Foundation about salvaging a wall from a school in Kerala. This exactly fits my approach as I want local communities to select the wall. The removal and transportation of the wall is funded by Jameel Arts Centre,” he said.
Transporting wall took 8 days by road, cost Rs 1.4L
Headmistress P Reena said it was a matter of pride for the school that a wall of its demolished building will be displayed at the Wall House in Abu Dhabi.
“We were approached by the foundation seeking permission to preserve the wall, when we decided to demolish the building. The wall features a picture representing Kerala culture,” Reena said.
Ceekay Global Trading Co in Kozhikode, owned by Kerala Exporters Forum secretary Munshid Ali, is transporting the wall.
“The biggest challenge was taking the wall from Kadalundi to the Kochi port,” said Munshid. “Though the distance from Kozhikode to Kochi is only 200 km, it took eight days for the trailer truck carrying the wall to reach Kochi. The 18-wheel low floor vehicle brought from Telangana had to take the Kozhikode-Palakkad route to avoid disruption of traffic. We decided to move the trailer only during night, but it was a Herculean task to remove the low-hanging power cables,” he said.
The normal fare to transport a container from Kozhikode to Kochi is `30,000, but Munshid had to pay `1.4 lakh due to the risks involved in transportation. The wall was loaded onto an open container brought from Mumbai by Sree Trans Logistics on Wednesday.
Cargo vessel SSL Kaveri will set sail from Kochi port to Jebel Ali Port in UAE with the wall on Thursday.