Friday, December 14, 2012

When I burn the wood... @ Tana Bana, Kota


Reflections From the tapestry of ‘TANA BANA, Chapter 1, Kota’ 
14 December 2012

Artist: Pramod Kumar,
(Patna and Baroda)


When I burn the wood
Where does the mass of wood go?

In the morning, around 10:00 AM, emerging artist Pramod Kumar started writing something on a busy street. Before that we were engaged into some other discussions in front of our temporal residency-spot and were planning about the day ahead. Suddenly one of us noticed, Pramod was walking to and fro on the street. It was a busy street: people were moving to office places, working places, public vehicles were asking for passengers and in brief all were hurried and all were busy in their own respective ways. We came out of the campus and saw Mr Pramod almost restlessly scratching something on the street and trying to figure out certain mark on the street.




We came closer and realized he was trying to write something across the street. Again speaking, it was a busy street, people were rushing on both the sides, Pramod was least careful about the rush and was very comfortably engaged into his own task , as if today he was trying something very desperately. His ignorance towards the traffic and involvement into his own work made an effective gesture. Gradually he started forming letters and then sentences. Some of other fellow artists now went ahead to do documentation of the work-process and to handle the traffic.

From letters to words, to sentences formed:
When I burn the wood
Where does the mass of wood go?


A very essential question that is scientifically as well as metaphysically relevant also: where does the mass go? Energy transforms? If yes, what about the mass? Does the spirit transform? If then what happens to the body? Without the body where does the spirit exist?

Pramod did a subtle performance on a busy street of Civil Lines. He was writing down the words with a lot of physical energy by putting strength on a found broken piece of brick, rubbing it again and again on a very rough surface of the street and making the environment very eventful by being an obstacle to the traffic. People, vehicles, dusts, leaves, gazes, glances, weights, masses and everything were in a rush; all were foot-stepping over the written words…

Perhaps what I got: all about Existence and Vanishing… 




The activity happens under TANA-BANA, The Warp and Weft of Art and the Public Domain.
A Public Art Event, 10th-16th Dec, 2012, Kota, Rajasthan 

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