ART FOR ART’S SAKE
When I was working in the tsunami ravaged belt of Tamil Nadu, I witnessed a rather strange phenomenon: a mass housing reconstruction programme that threatened to homogenise the diversity of rural heartland. The distinctive features of vernacular housing and architecture that were ecologically and environmentally sustainable and culturally unique were deemed ‘unfi t’ or ‘inferior’ to urban housing. The result? Homogeneity and anonymity that dissolved the distinctive cultural identity and traditions of the people.
Humans are unique in our ability to divide and fragment the world in which we live. Even worse, we view the world rather simplistically in terms of polar opposites: man/woman, West/East, good/ bad, light/dark, classical/folk, and so on. The assumption being that the fi rst of the pair is always overvalued and considered superior to its opposite.
Think of what such dichotomous thinking does to art forms. Does it mean that classical art is superior to folk art? Or folk art superior to tribal art? Or Western systems of art, education, philosophy, and medicine superior to its Eastern counterparts?
In today’s globalised world such questions have serious implications. Which is why we fi nd the initiatives of the Department of Folklore, St. Xavier’s College, Palyamkottai, heartening. Since 1987, when it was established, the department has been engaged in long term interventions that mainstream folk art forms of Tamil Nadu and resurrect it in a globalised context. Of particular importance is their committed effort in empowering rural artists with not only an artistically satisfying career but also, more importantly, with a sustainable livelihood.
