Art in Urban and Rural Contexts
Bhagya Ajaikumar
I have had the unique opportunity of growing up in and experiencing India and then coming to the western country like the U.S. Over the next twenty years I have tried to amalgamate the two, the classic eastern art incorporating into the western mind. Living in the heartland of America, Burlington Iowa, it was indeed a challenge. But over the years as I got involved into the Art Center, it became the welcome response from the local community and artists and was encouraging. I gave presentations in Art centers and community schools. A handful of them bought my work. I received an undergraduate degree from University of Iowa.
Since I was visiting my homeland once in a year or two, my creativity connected me to my cultural heritage. My art instructors also encouraged me to continue with the same. With our frequent trips to India, my husband started a charitable cancer hospital and this has developed to the state of the art medical facility in a city in Mysore. We conducted cancer detection camps in the rural areas and provided care to the needy in our hospital.
The NGO organization, which we started eleven years ago, by the name, International Human Development Academy (IHDA), is involved in rural education, and women empowerment program, which promotes education, politics and economics. We are running a free school in a rural village called Mullur, about 20 kilometers from the city 'Mysore'. We have about 400 students from kindergarten to 10th grade. With my teaching art to these children in the past year, I noticed the children are eager to learn. This has given me the feeling that the rural children in India have been left out of the main stream namely because of lack of access and exposure to the state of the art resources. They depend entirely on free education, on donors. The village community has been very helpful in providing land, as they requested us to start a school. The school has grown over the past ten years and the children are more disciplined in attending the school now. Although there are some dropouts as parents keep the children to work in the fields. We have noticed that the girls do more chores at home before coming to school.
When I introduced some design concepts, like radial design and symmetry to the 8th graders, they caught on quickly and I was surprised to see the results.
When comparing this with my teaching art in community schools in Iowa, students were eager to learn art relating to my culture, where as while my art experience in India, people wanted to see more innovative ideas from the foreign country.
Rural women in India work eighteen hours of domestic and fieldwork everyday. It is a blatant human rights violation. IHDA has programs for the empowerment of women in ‘Gundulpet’ a village in the state of Karnataka where women gather from surrounding villages. The women undergo training in tailoring, making incense sticks, pickles and spices. Recently, I introduced candle making. Women learnt the basic concepts quickly. During my next visit, I plan to teach more advanced techniques and introduce them to papermaking and artist books.
In the last few years the IHDA programs have made a significant difference in their life style. Culturally also, there is a dramatic change. Meeting in groups once week, they are able to interact and exchange ideas which contrary to our belief was lacking in rural women. This along with the micro credit systems and awareness-training program has given the women self-confidence, and the added benefits of the same. This also has an effect based on the training program. This model appears to be sustainable and having a multiplier effect.
India is a country of great divide. The urban India with 250 million middle and affluent population is well educated and competitive in this era of globalization. Bangalore is one such city, techno- savvy and population of over 7 million. Bangalore is considered as silicon of India and is also the hub of biotechnology, and premier education. It has one of the top healthcare destinations in the country. It is also becoming a prominent city in the art world. This town is developing to be the center hub for Art. There are art schools, galleries and many established artists, and curators.
Recently I had an art show in Bangalore. In the urban areas, people are more aware of art, their response is much more deeper than people from the rural community. The urban people are more concerned with the conceptual aspects and appreciate and want to see more innovative and advanced works. There was an Indian who had returned to India from the U.S. who bought my work.
The response I have had in the U.S. in the urban setting is people are intrigued as to the cultural aspect; people who have some knowledge about India seem to appreciate my work more.
As I have noticed, sale of art pieces in rural areas in U.S was minimal; the general public spent more on craft and decorative items. I noticed the same in urban areas in India. Of course in rural India, people cannot afford to buy art, but they are very curious to know about the urban life style.