The Kochi Biennale is India’s biggest art event. Many artists engaged with environmental issues, but for this column, what’s noteworthy is that it empowers visitors (many well-to-do) to embrace lifestyles different from those back home. I was personally struck by how much people walked.
The roads are as lousy as roads in other cities, and pedestrian pavements as non-existent. It was just that not using cars everywhere was the rhythm of the space. Almost no place was air-conditioned. People wore hats and cotton clothes, drank water and enjoyed ceiling fans.
The biennale was curated to build a sense of community. You simply cannot make change unless to learn to function as a community. The many kitchens, film screenings, performances, talks and just meeting points became nuclei for community building. Why does a brief dip into a greener topography matter? First, because it is reassuring that this is possible at an event which, in its last edition, was attended by six lakh people.
Second, experiencing this even for a weekend builds confidence (in the one who undertakes it) that such a less consumptive life is not a punishment.
Third, because it suggests that you need to create the ambience, the possibility and the culture.
{{/usCountry}}Third, because it suggests that you need to create the ambience, the possibility and the culture.
{{/usCountry}}In this era of severe climate change, such collaterals from India’s best art event offer should set us thinking.
(The writer is the founder and director of Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group)