An exhibition of Earth works and installations on a hilltop in Charalkunnu, Kerala
Participating Artists : Raghavendra Rao, Mia Stephan (Australia), and C.F. John
C.F.John, Size: 12ft x 12ft, Medium: Mud, Cow Dung, Leaf plates, rice and seeds
and limestone powder
We used materials like plastic, sprouted seeds, stitched leaf plates, food grains, animal bones, collected fresh from butcher shops, Coke cans, and Earth.
Raghavendra Rao; Plastic and garbage collected from the surrounding areas,metal wire and thread ,4 feet diameter x 10 feet height
"Celebration of abundance is inmate to almost all communities. A seed sprouting, growing, blossoming and giving fruit makes us happy. We are revitalised and we celebrate ourselves with it. "The perennial desire for life and prosperity is greater than the breadth of Earth and Heaven… Greater than all things moving and inert, and beyond the reach of wind or fire, the sun or the moon. It is this primordial cosmic desire that in men and women becomes human desire binding us all into a community and also to earth, animate and inanimate" (S.Kappen, Tradition Modernity Counter Culture)
Mia Stephen, Size 2ft x 2ft x 3ft, Medium: Plastic creeper and sticker
Modern consumerist life has changed the intrinsic character of this celebration. Here prosperity lost its meaning as fullness of life but gained new meaning i.e. wealth. In the new market "The synthetic projects itself as natural, the decaying as garden fresh, the unwholesome as salutary. The possibility that products have, to appear other than what they are has no limit. Added to this one have an array of alien products to meet a cultivated alien and accumulating demands" (S.Kappen). From this vicious circle of demand-supply what churns out is the waste. Wasting is an inherent illness of this modern day celebration. How do we deal with this illness? How do we understand waste as material?
C.F.John