Step inside the KNMA gallery space in Saket, Delhi. Wait. Catch a breath. A gigantic mural by Anpu Varkey dominates the wall facing the entrance. The depicted scene is derived from the 43-year-old muralist’s ‘silent book’, Summer’s Children. A circular, winding abyss in monochrome representing the wild and unknown, it stares down at visitors. Next to it the work of Los Angeles-based David Horvitz looks almost commonplace.
His illustrations are inspired by his book, Change the Name of Days, and appear as posters with simple instructions that pop up across the exhibition. One reads ‘welcome the night into your house’, another says ‘exchange breaths with a plant’—simple words that force viewers to uncover deeper meanings. This exploration is the magic of the show, Very Small Feelings. It is the fourth in the series named ‘Young Artists of Our Times’, which began in 2019, and was conceptualised by Senior Curator of Exhibitions and Programming, Akanksha Rastogi, as a long-term, multi-part programme at the KNMA.
Meant as an interactive show that addresses the child within, it debuted at the Dhaka Art Summit in February this year. The most overwhelming work is Mumbai-based Rupali Gupte and Prasad Shetty’s Belly of the Strange. The oblong-shaped hollow structure with two openings—one of them large enough for visitors to enter the ‘belly’ and check out the story books across languages, reminds one of the Biblical tale of Jonah and the Whale, where a man is swallowed by a whale and ends up living inside the huge fish.
Gupte says, “One doesn’t know if it is a large overgrown toy or a diminutive space nestled within the gallery or a large faraway galaxy. Its whale-like interior invites you to tell and listen to strange and fabulous stories from multiple geographies.”
Almost two years in the making, nearly half of the 42 projects on display were specifically created for the exhibition. “We wanted to look at art through a child’s perspective. Storytelling is a device we use as a common thread. Books are an integral part of the show. There are books that have been turned into installations here,” says Rastogi, the co-curator of the show. Take, for instance, the visualisation of Amitav Ghosh’s Jungle Nama with its central character of ‘Bon bibi’ (jungle queen) by Salman Toor; the graphic art of Ganesh Pyne illustrating Bengali fairy tales such as Saat Bhai Champa; Joydeb Roaja’s Go Back to Roots telling stories of a childhood in the hill tracts of Chittagong; Kabir Ahmed Masum Chisty’s The Story of Water and Labor Pain, which talks about floods through the character ‘Bonna’ (flood in Bengali), and more.
The emphasis of the show is on interaction between the artist and the audience. Conceptual artist Ahmet Ogut, who divides his time between Istanbul, Amsterdam and Berlin, has an interesting take on modern master Benodebehari Mukherjee’s works. Through his project Jump Up!, he invites visitors to view three of Mukherjee’s mixed-media collages by bouncing on a trampoline. Multi-disciplinary Dutch artist Afra Eisma’s project Poke Press Squeeze Clasp uses giant-sized rag dolls one can cuddle with. “I use art-making as a means to deal with pent-up emotions such as anger and trauma. The rag dolls are like imaginary friends. I use bright colours to look at dark issues. I enjoy working on projects that are tactile,” says the 30-year-old. As galleries and artists look for new forms and formats to engage the world, KNMA has managed to break down the white box structure to come up with a space that is an “exhibition-cum-playground-cum-school”, as Rastogi says.
The show is on till October 10.