‘Breaking Ground’

How it all began

“It all started way back in China in 2013 when a number of Indian ceramicists were working to manifest the Indian Pavilion of the Fule International Ceramic Art Museum in the city of Fuping,” says Ray Meeker, the co-founder of Golden Bridge Pottery in Pondicherry. “A few of them started thinking of an Indian ceramics biennale, something which is common in countries such as China and Korea but which has never happened in India. But it wasn’t till summer 2016 that I got a call from one of them, Anjani Khanna, that they were going to do a ceramics biennale at the JKK. Could I be an advisor? I agreed, and together with the other advisors, Peter Nagy from New Delhi’s Gallery Nature Morte and Pooja Sood, we have been supporting the six-member working committee cum curatorial team, which, incidentally, mainly consisted of my former students.”

The purpose of the Triennale

“We did not want to pay homage to history but instead show contemporary ceramic art from India and abroad,” says Vineet Kacker, one of the curators. “Though India has thousands of ceramic artists, there is not much public ceramic awareness. There are no galleries dedicated to ceramics, there are no ceramic shows and, contrary to other art forms such as dance, there are no professional critics. We want to show that ceramic art is a full member of the fine arts family, and help viewers see ceramics in a different context. We aimed at scale – many of the works that are exhibited are huge – , at diversity, and at a variety of material usage, showing both unfired and fired works.”

The organizers hope to instill awareness that ceramics can contribute to beautifying the environment, whether as non-functional art objects or as façades and murals of buildings, as is done in many other parts of the world.

The selection

“The artists’ selection was a mixed affair,” recalls Ray. “The curatorial team compiled a list of some 100 artists and shortlisted 50 of them on the basis of their portfolio and their proposed installation. But then it was decided to make an open call, and that brought in an entirely different group of people, with some artists who were completely unknown. A new shortlist was made and the team finally settled on 35 artists from India, including four artists from Auroville. As funding was a problem, only 12 foreign artists could be invited, those who had managed to secure their own funding. We were lucky that we got a fantastic group of foreign artists – but if we had funds, we would have invited many more.”

Are Aurovilian ceramicists ‘special’ since there is such a high participation from Auroville? Adil Writer, one of the selected Auroville participants, shrugs off the question. “In a highly curated exhibition like this, nothing matters except your portfolio and the work you are proposing for it. I am pretty sure more Aurovilians would have been selected if they had chosen to participate,” he says.

The future

Adil’s feeling about the exhibition is that it is “stunning. I have been invited to many biennales all over the world, and this is at par with anything I have seen. This is not a show about normal ceramics; it is literally breaking ground. It is going to put ceramics and art on the world map, just as the Kochi Biennale is doing.”

Rajeev Sethi, India’s leading design professional and art critic, praised the exhibition as an eye-opener for ceramic art. “This event has great potential and, like the Kochi Biennale, can become an international calling card and grow as big as the Venice Biennale,” he says.

“A major question, right from the beginning, was if we should go for a biennale or triennale,” says Ray. “There was general relief when there was a unanimous decision to go for a triennale – if we had decided on a biennale, the working committee would have to start organising the next one right away – so the next one will be in 2021, perhaps at a different location.”

“The next one may be completely different, says Peter. “The definition of ceramics is broad and we may include not only fine arts ceramics, but also archaeological finds and technological and scientific use of ceramics. But all that will be seen in future.”

Breaking Ground, the first Indian Ceramics Triennale, can be visited from August 31 to November 18.

Simultaneously with Breaking Ground, six more exhibitions of contemporary ceramic art were organized at different locations in Jaipur, showcasing the works of more than 100 ceramic artists from all over India. AnanTaya organized Handle It, in which two Auroville ceramicists, Supriya and Julietta, participated. The Juneja Art Gallery hosted the exhibition Woven Together; the Samanvai Art Gallery hosted Tree of Plenty; Gallery Art Chill hosted two exhibitions, Into the Box and Just an Illusion; and AKFD Story hosted H20, where two more Auroville artists, Sabrina and Nausheen, exhibited their works.

Adil Writer: The deserted bar code

The idea of the bar code started several years ago when I was in China. I was thinking of what to make to symbolize a connection between China and India. I realised that when we think of China, we think of consumerism and that everything on the market, from the cheapest to the most expensive products, carries a bar code. Hence, I decided to make a bar code. I started making one in clay, which didn’t work out, then finally settled on a 20-piece bar code installation, each piece made from canvas wrapped around wooden frames and painted with acrylic paint. It was colourful and it travelled to various exhibitions. But then it had its day. Over the last 6 months I converted it into an unfired canvas-clay piece, with stickers on it saying ‘please touch’. I want people to become aware that clay doesn’t need to be fired, that it can be left unfired. This piece was selected by the organizers of the Triennale as they wanted to show another expression of clay.

The title of the work, ‘The deserted bar code’, is a play on words. I love to see the night sky, something which is still possible in Auroville and in the desert, but not in the big cities. I was trying to bring that out. So the bar code became black on the top and yellow at the bottom as an image of the desert with the night sky, using locally sourced clays. The black clay is the Thanghar clay we use every day in the studio, which fires white. The yellow is bentonite and the flashes of red, Auroville earth. The raw unfired clays have been fixed using an adhesive, which also acts as a cracking agent, and the surface later stabilised by a matt varnish.

The installation can be assembled in various ways: as a bar code, or mounted horizontally on a wall, or as a gateway with verticals spanned by a horizontal bar.

Saraswati: Anti Gravity

I do not have a formal education in the arts, but there was an intense homeschooling process as my family was fully involved in a life of art community. I got a degree in Russian language and literature and worked as a journalist for nine years before coming to Auroville. But since my childhood I was involved with clay, as it was the preferred art medium of my mother. It was my escape, my secret garden, but I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to become a full-time potter. When I moved to Auroville, I started working at Auromode, designing silk accessories, and taught ceramics at the White Peacock studio run by my mother, who had joined Auroville a few years earlier.

Then, about 10 years ago, there was an inner conversation with The Mother, and it became clear what path I had to follow. And that was ceramics. Today, if I don’t work with clay, I get sick very fast. I am only joyful after a day of work – when something has been completed or is in process. I learned that Lakshmi only comes when Sarawati is there. Only if you work every day will the inspiration come. That led to my participation in a show in Goa, to a solo show in Auroville, and I was member of the team that worked at Toranagallu in Karnataka.

I wear three hats today. I do my art work, I teach clay to children and I make ceramic jewelry to be able to fund the materials, equipment and other costs that come along with the ceramic media. I think I found my balance between giving and getting, moving in and spreading out, being alone and enjoying the larger family of Auroville.

The work that was accepted for the Jaipur Triennale is called ‘anti-gravity’ and speaks about the fragility of everything in life, how fast life goes. The installation consists of 12 house-like objects made of porcelain, 11 are standing and one is suspended. The structures represent living spaces as well as human characters. My work process is rather a spontaneous flow. I start with a sketch, but I am always happy to abandon it. When I work, the piece unfolds; I find the rhythm and discover the balance of the work, and so it grows, not logically, but by following an inner sense which the piece dictates at each step. And I try to keep the mind empty. For if one sticks to one’s own ideas, the divine has no way to enter.

Rakhee Kane: Shifting identities

When I learned that I had been accepted to exhibit at the Triennale at the Jawahar Kala Kendra (JKK), I started pondering what to show. As I have a special connection with Rajasthan, I felt that my piece had to resonate with Rajasthan. Rajasthan is known for its intricate stone lattices or jaalis, which act as a space divider, as a veil and provide privacy. Another source of inspiration was Jaipur’s famous sun dial, the Jantar Mantar, where the sun’s shadow shows the time of the day. I decided to make an L-shaped jaali of 9 x 9 feet and 9 x 3 feet in a contemporary form, positioned in such a way that a play of light and shadows is projected on to a wall. 170 jaalis were made, each one different from the other, from which I selected 120, and constructed the structure in situ at the JKK.

To give an architectural dynamic to the piece, a wall had to be built. I decided to make this in rammed earth with soil in different coloured clays sourced from Rajasthan. A team from Auroville travelled to Jaipur and put it all together.

Together with my husband Dharmesh, we identified two locations at JKK to get the optimum play of shadows and light. The best location would have been the entrance lawn, but this was not possible for technical reasons. So we settled for the second place, where the sun strikes the installation only for 3-4 hours of day. In the evening, artificial lighting provides the dramatic shadows.

In many ways, this installation is also breaking ground for me. This was the first time I have been playing with shadows and light and combined architectural high-fired ceramics with rammed earth. I quite enjoyed it and I hope to continue doing things like this.

Priya Sundaravalli: Blossoming – Being all of them, She stands there

The portfolio I had sent the Triennale curatorial committee contained a picture of a 4-metre high piece I had made at an art residency at the Jindal Steel Works in Toranagallu: a steel valve clad with hundreds of ceramic tesserae. They asked if I could make “something similar, something big” for the Triennale. But where to find such a base? The big disc in Toranagallu had come from the scrap yard of JSW’s steel factory. I did not have the finances to order something like that.

The solution came on a walk around the Matrimandir, when I saw some fibreglass discs standing outside a workshop. I was told they were early test discs, no longer of use to the Matrimandir and I could have them.

That brought the second challenge – to find a way in which these discs could be harmoniously grouped. Extensive internet search led to a solution, when I found a ‘circlesphere’, a word coined by an American sculptor Kenneth Snelson, which showed how circles could be put together into a 3-D form. Then, with the invaluable help of Aureka, Auroville’s metal workshop, and the enthusiastic support of its executive, Palani, we managed to combine the eight discs into a single installation, with the gaps between the discs filled with locally-made fibreglass membranes.

At my workshop I had meanwhile started to make and fire the thousands of flowers in various sizes and colours. Then followed weeks of composition, glueing, leading to this installation. My inspiration for the title of this work came from Thiruvaimozhi, a collection of Tamil hymns by the 9th century Alvar saint, Nammalvar. In one of these hymns, he praises the Divine who is present in all – Being this man, that woman, and those things, being all, She stands there.