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Don’t you listen? Don’t you look, Don’t you hear me?
The Sea of Pain is an address, a dialogue and a hope. Drawing on the Syrian refugee crisis, Raul Zurita dedicates this work to one particular casualty - Galip Kurdi, the brother of Alan Kurdi, the three year old boy whose body washed ashore a beach on the second of September 2015, his image becoming synonymous with Syrian refugee crisis. That you read Zurita’s words with your feet immersed in seawater only highlights the embodied reality of this war of terror. This body of water - and having you walk through it - is a gesture both religious and locating. It is a work that is at once reflective as well as meditative and redemptive.
The Sea of Pain
For Galip Kurdi Amin Kurdi was three and his photograph circled the world. He lay face down and the blue red of his clothes was striking in its strange tidiness on the shore. Hours later the Turkish coast guards recuperated the bodies of his mother and small five-year-old brother, Galip, but of him there are no photographs.
No one can mimic his final image moored face down at the water's edge. No artist can provide that low blow. Ah, the world of art, world of images, billions of images. The words of a poem are cleaner, more pure.
When the boat filled with Syrian immigrants overturned, the father swam from one boy to the other trying in desperation to save them, but he could only see how they disappeared. I wasn't there.
I'm not his father. There are no photographs of Galip Kurdi, he can't hear, he can't see, he can't feel, and the silence comes down like immense white cloths.
Below the silence you can make out a piece of sea, of the sea of pain. I'm not his father, but Galip Kurdi is my son.
Raúl Zurita
Zurita ask the audience: Don’t you listen? Don’t you look, Don’t you hear me? The sea that divides between people, that border between lands is the site of pain and suffering, it is where Galip Kurdi and so many others have died - their deaths or not captured or remembered. The sea is the body that is reflected on, that you read these words immersed in the water.
Raúl Zurita is one of Latin America’s most celebrated and controversial poets. After Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 US-supported military coup that ousted Salvador Allende’s democratically elected government, Zurita’s poetry sought to register the violence and atrocities committed against the Chilean people and the corruption of the Spanish language. During the dictatorship that lasted from 1973 to 1990, Zurita published a trilogy of books (Purgatory, Anteparadise, and The New Life), wrote poems in the sky above New York City, bulldozed poems in the Chilean desert, and helped to form the art collective “Colectivo de Accion de Arte” that used performance as an act of political resistance. Of his early poetry, C.D. Wright has written: “Under the eyes of church and dictatorship, he began to write and publish his poetry, juxtaposing secular and sacred, ruled and unruled. With a mysterious admixture of logic and logos, Christian Symbols, brain scans, graphics, and a medical report, Zurita expanded the formal repertoire of his language, of poetic materials, pushing back against the ugly vapidity of rule by force.”
Zurita was awarded the Chilean National Prize for Literature, a scholarship from the Guggenheim Foundation, and he has held poetry readings at numerous American universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Berkeley. His books in English translation include Anteparadise (translated by Jack Schmitt), Purgatory (translated by Anna Deeny), INRI (translated by William Rowe) and Song for His Disappeared Love (translated by Daniel Borzutzky). He lives in Chile.
(Poetry Foundation)
Seeks to invoke the cosmopolitan spirit of the modern metropolis of Kochi and its mythical past, Muziris, create a platform that introduce contemporary international visual art theory and practice to India.
He calls himself The Lone-traveller. In section about him is written: Don’t have a clue yet. He silently stalks Kochi Muziris Biennale artists and transform their visions into photographs.
Art. Travel. Music. He has in the frame, while he is focusing his lenses on Kochi Muziris Biennale artists. His head might be in Wayanad's clouds, but his mind is spelled by the performance of Theyyam dancers.
If there’s anything that I have stolen from my grandmother’s shelf of knick-knacks is a spoonful of pickle and some sweet and sour sarcasm. And yes, thanks to that I landed a job as a writer in a magazine.
You wear a saree only when you become a woman.” It sounds like a sentimentally wise thing to say, but let me break it down to you. In other words, it also meant, “When you’re ripe enough for the marriage market.”
Chilean poet and featuring artist at the Kochi Muziris Biennale 2016 on the possibility of an artistic response to the human crises of our time, including the refugee crisis surrounding the conflict in Syria. The sea, which became a grave for hundreds of people, including children.
Theyyam is a vibrant and colourful form of ritualistic worship that is deeply rooted in the culture and traditions of Kerala, India. This living tradition involves elaborate rituals, music, dance, and vibrant costumes that bring to life the divine spirits being invoked.
A new beginning is always infused with hope. Life is full of moments that we believe to be beginnings only because of the presence of hope. A physical symbol of these moments of hope is the flower. The films attempts to capture the emotion of these beginnings.
Dravidian Catharsis is the fruit of this deep immersion in the culture, the theatre, the traditions, and the soul of this mythological universe of the Tamil people. The powerful presences of spirits and living gods are embodied under masks.
Legend says that somewhere deep in the forest of the Himalayas is a strange bird that lays psychedelic eggs. Eating them will give you highly vivid hallucinations. The indigenous shamans believe that these visions are from your past life.
Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away this year on 28th March leaving behind a legacy of innumerable musical compositions that'll keep him alive in countless hearts across the world. However, I'll always be haunted by the fact that I couldn't let him know that I'm still alive because of his music along with many more.
Search for the questions to the answers written on the skin...and i asked. am i connected to the deep inside you? with the invisible roots from the layered skin of you? all the energy you transfer to the heart of your thoughts?i asked again am i still connected?
01: Ayurveda in Travancore Kingdom
If you expect stories which starts: Once upon a time, there was a princess... stop reading. Her Highness Princess Gouri Parvathi Bayi of the Travancore Royal Family will introduce us very modern and open minded view on today's Kerala society and ayurveda.
Stories of communities about origin, spread and apocalypse being presented through episodic memories, narrative and visual texts, travel writings, murals, divine objects, church paintings, and songs provide a dense and myriad repository of historical and artistic imagination.
IN OUR VEINS FLOW INK AND FIRE
This edition of the KMB 2022 embodies the joy of experiencing practices of divergent sensibilities, under conditions both joyful and grim. There is optimism even in the darkest absurdity, and this is what leavens the direness of our time.
KR Sunil goes beyond his frames to explore and discover soulful human stories. In this journey, he pursues a long forgotten life, that of a Tamil boy who endured the worst in a journey to Kerala. As the World Cup fever peaks, here is a story.
Presenting to you the most exciting project that we have worked on this year! A short film shot entirely on phone, this project has been a dream & after a lot of anticipation & hard work from all of us here, we are super duper excited to finally bring this to you!
Nitesh Noor Mohanty is a visual artist who works at the fluid intersection of arts, culture, communication, media and self-reflection. His theoretical interests are also wide, often inquiring about the roots and fundamentals of art history, storytelling, and philosophy.
Life & Times of Amrita Sher-Gil
Amrita Sher-Gil, considered the mother of Indian modern painting, became known as the Indian Frida Kahlo. With her paintbrush she explored the sadness felt by people, especially women, in 1930s India, giving voice and validity to their experiences.
