Shubhra Chaturvedi: An ‘Andolanjeevi’ Artist??

In an interview with author, journalist and activist Revti Laul, artist Shubhra Chaturvedi discusses the process of creating her art

Revati Laul

Updated on: 5 October 2024 4:51 pm

Artist Shubhra Chaturvedi’s ‘Halla Bowl’: look, remember and stay with the story Photo: Michael Allan Luther

Artist Shubhra Chaturvedi’s ‘Halla Bowl’—a series of paper pulp bowls—is a reminder that we must look, remember and stay with the story. In an interview with author, journalist and activist Revti Laul, Chaturvedi discusses the process of creating her art.

There’s a place beyond the slick sirens on Insta and the carousel of reels in constant tantalising play in front of us. ‘Kareena, Kareena, ma’am, this side please.’ There is the happy repeat seduction of stars in GIFs taking our agitated minds off most things. But there is the deeper, more abiding and retro way of seeing that an artist in Delhi brought back to our collective consciousness.

It’s the act of remembering. The deeply political act of seeing past the flat deception of news telling us that the assembly elections in Kashmir are about everything being normal. Instead of this sanitised political erasure, there is an artist who insists that we must raise hell. Shubhra Chaturvedi, 51, has a charm that comes from an unflinching emotionally raw naivete that our deeply cynical world and our tired eyes need most.

We need to see again the real trauma that is Kashmir post the taking away of its essential identity in 2019. We need to see and remember the distress of our farmers, whose protests were greeted with nails strewn across our highways at the behest of the police. Seeing is remembering. Seeing is the deeply soulful political act that Chaturvedi brought to our eyes through her solo show at Delhi’s Bikaner House (September 21-26). Khud Se RoohbaRooh’ was her invitation not to have a tete-a- tete literally with one’s self but for the country to have a deep dark look at itself in all its gory, unsavouriness. Look, remember and stay with the story, stay with the farmers, the Palestinians, the Kashmiris, the migrants we lost to COVID. Do not look away. Commit this political act of staying and seeing, says Chaturvedi. Raise hell.

‘Halla Bowl’ is a series of paper pulp bowls. One is filled with nails—that the artist calls ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’. Another has remnants of rice. Who gets to eat and who stays hungry? There is an essential seeing that is a relief from the pantomime-like images we are fatted on. Raising hell is old-world agitation, the world of street protests and Safdar Hashmi, returning to tell us to wake up and stay awake.

In Chaturvedi’s own words, here’s more of what to expect and what not to miss.

What is art for you?

I feel that an artist’s work has to reflect the times. I’m not saying that all art has to be dark. But in my art, it has to reflect everything. There’s an entire body of work that I labelled ‘Andolanjeevi.’ I said I’m an Andolanjeevi artist.

When the abrogation of Article 370 happened in Kashmir, I was in the hills and I was all alone. I didn’t have anyone around to give vent to my feelings. So at that point of time, I made this work which was called ‘Nazarband.’

Photo: Michael Allan Luther

What were you feeling when you made that painting, of hands clutching jail bars? It’s a very, very, powerful work.

Suffocation. And so helpless. People couldn’t make calls. There was no electricity for some days.

Then during COVID, you made a very hard-hitting series called ‘Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega,’ and there was one painting within that called ‘No one died due to oxygen shortage.’

Basically, 2020 was a period globally of anxiety. When the second wave of COVID happened my own family, my own aunt was hospitalised for fifteen days. And at one point it was very touch and go because of the oxygen shortage in Delhi hospitals. And the whole family came together to find one cylinder. We even got looted by someone for it. There were so many deaths all around, in the country. And then in July or around then, in our Parliament, the health minister said: “No one died due to oxygen shortage”. When something is said in the Parliament, it is recorded. So, I was thinking—what is this? Did people die of nothing? So, I made the series—'Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega’.

Photo: Michael Allan Luther

What did you feel about the farmers’ protests? What was it in those protests that you were responding to?

I feel very strongly about people who are bringing food to our table. I made my work at the point when the police put nails—cemented nails—to the road to prevent tractors from coming into Delhi. And I was, like—this is IT. You give us food and we give you nails. You don’t have to agree with the farmers but can’t you sit across a table and talk to them? Why are you preventing them from coming in? This is their capital, their country. Why? My whole thought was—how low can we go?

The other work that also got you an award was ‘Gaza Patti’. What made you feel strongly about Gaza and what were you conveying through that work?

So when this whole Gaza thing happened, initially I was at some distance from this news emotionally because it was international. But then I saw that this was not stopping. The bombing of civilians kept going on and on. Then a friend of mine posted a poem on Facebook. The poem says that the medical gauze we use to cover our wounds gets its name from the city of Gaza. Because they have a centuries-old tradition of being the finest healers. The poem talked of how many wounds of ours have been healed by you and how many wounds of yours have been opened because of us. When I read that, it touched me deeply.

Photo: Michael Allan Luther

Are you scared when you take a stand and put your work out there for the public?

Let me be honest. It’s not that I’m not scared. But I strongly believe that art has to be a documentation of the artist’s life. And the times that the artist lived in. So, I can’t do it any other way. I thought about it a lot. Why am I doing this? Why can I not just make non-controversial work, within quotes. But then I realised it’s not like I’m thinking and doing this. It’s not that I’m saying—okay, I’ll make a controversial work, okay I’ll make this. I am just responding to the world through my art. And my art work is also about healing. There is so much bloodshed happening but what we need is healing.