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Journalism of Courage
The last four months, the abandoned laboratory of the sprawling Aspinwall House, a 19th century spice warehouse, saw experiments of a different sort. The materials involved clay, hay and found objects that occupied the vicinity of the magnificent sea facing heritage property in Fort Kochi. “These are artifacts of the present day,” says Sahej Rahal. Explaining the paradox is a room full of exhibits where sculptures are designed from damaged doors and wooden panels, and a strange-looking creature seems to be walking down from the sea behind and ceremonial masks are placed alongside a bullock cart.
“The base for all works comes from the venue, when it was being readied for the Biennale. These are things that were meant to be thrown to make space for the artwork or even while filming documentaries in here,” says the Mumbai-based artist who shifted base to Fort Kochi in July. “I wanted my work to be rooted here, and this was the only way I could have managed it,” he states.
His apartment, down the road from the Aspinwall House, has been his home. Morning jogs on the beach were usually followed by self-cooked breakfast and lunch at Andhra Bhawan. “It shut some weeks back,” says Rahal. He is comfortable in his surrounding, familiar with the bylanes of the Fort area, where he is now guiding friends. Just before we meet him, he was helping fellow artists put up their works in Mattancherry, a few kilometers from his exhibit “Harbringer” where the crowd was pouring in.
Incidentally, Rahal traces the origin of the work to the Pattanam excavation that unearthed antiquities belonging to the ancient city of Muziris. “The clay figures represent the ‘absent port city’ of Muziris, which was supposedly destroyed in a Tsunami in 1341,” says the 26-year-old, adding that the clay used has been transported from a village near Thrissur. “The weather here facilitates their slow cracking and perhaps eventual crumbling, but I don’t mind that,” he says. While he intends to fire the larger works, the smaller pieces might feature in a gallery exhibition. “Sometimes it’s just good to let go,” says Rahal, inviting both feedback and criticism.
It is perhaps this tolerant approach that is responsible for the steady climb of the recent graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts and Crafts Rachana Sansad. The apprentice with Tejal Shah and Shumona Goel was awarded the INLAKS fine art award for young and emerging artists in 2012. Four residencies, including the prestigious Gasworks in London, and a couple of solos later, he is referred to in the art circuit as the master of found objects, who instills new life in them, whether it be a plaster torso of Saraswati he came across in Andheri or a wooden didgeridoo in a garbage bin in Brixton. The venue that he occupies at the Biennale had the work of veteran Atul Dodiya in the last edition. “It’s a great honour,” says Rahal, who was in the audience watching his teacher at Rachana Sansad, Nikhil Chopra, as “The Black Pearl” in a performance at the Biennale.
There is one lined-up by him too. By January, Rahal hopes to conceive an act suitable for the Biennale. If his famed ongoing series of performances, Bhramana (where he dresses in different garbs), is a benchmark, the bar he has set for himself is high.
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