'Dhwani: A contemporary art installation provokes the Kundalini energy at a Durga Puja Pandal in Kolkata

At the Tridhara Durga Puja, Kolkata, a contemporary art installation catches the visitors’ eye. Dhwani, a sculpture, 12 feet long and 150 kilograms, is envisaged as a manifestation of the Kundalini Shakti. The installation was compiled by Myna Mukherjee and produced by Shilo Suleman in collaboration with members of the Lohar community of Smid in Rajasthan. For one, it brings together the age-old tradition of metalwork with new age media. In a way, it breaks the silos of folk and contemporary art. The Durga Puja Pandals across the country become in nappies for public art every year, where millions of people encounter different visual vocabulary outside the white cube space. For Mukherjee, it was important to place contemporary art within pandals, which has long been the meeting point for community, rituals and politics. ‘… it’s about the decomposition of the hierarchies between high art and popular art, folk and contemporary, ritual and avant-garde. Dhwani becomes part of the continuum-a presentation to the goddess, but also a reminder that art belongs to everyone, not just the privileged pair, ‘she adds. The golden brilliance of Dhwani stands in stark contrast to the whole black theme of the pandal designed by Gouranga Kuila, which undermines the idea of ​​white as pure and black as ominous. According to Mukherjee, it was during colonial rule that the British obsession with white as a pure color black to an ominous one relegated. ‘Yet the cosmologies of Bengal tell another story: Kali, Shyama, Tantric Night Rituals and Indigenous Goddess Traditions have long celebrated darkness as fruitful, fierce and divine. Here, Black is not an absence of power, but a revival of pre -tunes and a resistance to fertility, the soil and the leading brehanic divine traditions, black power, “she explains. Pandal not only visually, but politically different – it challenges us to remember what is overwritten, “says Mukherjee. The Kundalini energy has a deep meaning for Shilo. She calls it a snake, an original creative power, the divine female and more. KwaStroke, ‘she says. to explore. Sound sensors were envisaged by Laxita, an electronic engineer, who had a long association with Shilo. The energy that permeates the work, from the first sketch to the final setup, has been through female divinity. This is something I find extremely empowering, ”says Shilo. The collaboration with the Lohar communities of Rajasthan also has a deep meaning for the artist. When she moved to Jaipur almost five years back, she wanted to deepen her engagement with brass work.” And most reliable mare in my team – Shehzaad and Babulal – from the same community as my family, ”she is expanding. A trustee is my role in holding the space of translation: to ensure that the work remains based on community crafts, while also strengthening the resonance in a global contemporary art language, “she adds.” Dhwani ‘can be considered until October 2 in the Tridhara Durga Puja, Kolkata.