TEMPORARY contemporary A DIARY OF AN ARTIST RECIDENCY IN ITALY by Asim Waqif
Progetto grafico: Paolo Giacomazzi Progetto editoriale: Maria Perosino
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Versione monocromatica in nero
7 mm
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Camera di Commercio Logo - Bianco e nero Company - Cliente Camera di Commercio Artwork - Esecutivo CDC_bn.eps
Date - Data 09.12.09 Country - Paese ITALIA
Implementation - Esecutivista CDL
So ware Adobe Illustrator CS3
Recommended colours - Colori raccomandati
Note
TEMPORARY contemporary A DIARY OF AN ARTIST RECIDENCY IN ITALY by Asim Waqif
Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella Qwatz, Rome Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania Any views expressed in the following pages are my interpretation of what I believe the people I talked to were trying to say. Most of the interviews were held with the help of amateur interpreters and some ideas may have been misinterpreted in translation. I have also been forced, against my wishes, to obscure images and locations to protect privacy according to Italian laws May 2010
Feb-May2010
This is a limited edition print copy of a blog-diary of my experiences and research during an artist-residency in Milan as part of the Global Art Program initiated by Artegiovane, Torino. This print version differs slightly from the original blog. You can also see the blog at www.artistmilano. wordpress.com
HOW IT ALL BEGAN Dear Asim, I hope you are well. I believe this email may find you in the Andamans! Well, some good news: you have been selected as the artist in residence (beginning Feb. 2010) in Italy by the selection team. This is an informal communication and an official announcement will be made very soon. Thats awesome ! Congrats! Great news. Which city? How long is it for? merry christmas. hey that is fantastic, congratulations! i am not sure about the dates. but starting sometime in february. they will give me stipend, airfare, place to stay, all travel and also production expenses. Sounds good. Also you should learn italian i look forward to hearing more about italy, andamans, bhopal. talk to you soon . best, Still waiting to hear from you/italy formally about the residency. I also need to know details like the exact dates, etc. need to tell SPA about when i will not be able to come to teach and also plan out my other projects. The next week we will have a meeting for defining your residence in Italy . In any case for the Visa you need
the following program : *to stay in Italy from the beginning of February,arriving to Milan the 08.02 and leaving to Delhi the 16.05. *from 8.02 to 6/7.03 you will stay in Milan: the Residency and the Studio will be c/o Fare Arte Via Piranesi 10 Milan *from 7.03 to 9.04 you will turn to different Residencies in Turin,Rome,Catania/Sicily,and another city that will be selected according to you on function of your project. *from 10.04 to 10.05 you will stay in Milan for the realization of the Project , solo show in a Gallery in Milan *from 11.05 to 15.05 you will stay in Turin to present your installation and your Diary in occasion of Turin International Book Fair,in wich the India is the Country Guest : the opening will be the 13.05. All others details, i.e the workshop “Surprise”, explaining and creating with childs, will be agreed with you when you will be in Milan. At your disposal Best regards To apply for the visa I need to have a formal invitation from your side. The embassy here usually also asks to see airline booking, place where I will be staying as well as medical insurance.
There is just one month left for the residency so I hope you can send the papers as soon as possible. Thanks again. Hope to hear from you soon. Best Regards miyan, adaab. bhai, hum to italy ja rahe hain 3 mahine ke liye. won an artist-in-residence in milan. will be out from mid-feb to mid may. excited and worried because i dont know what the fuck i am going to do. app ka kya chal raha hain? kuchch masti bhi kar liya karo life main kabhi-kabhi….. arre, kayeki pareshani jo pehni fankari sherwani… merekubi batau aise tikitaan kaan milte… masti to karke aaye andamaan me… wonderful place! khuda hafiz… At the end of your residence, your work will be shown in Milan and Turin for a small period (about one week in each town) All the works realised by the artists involved in the Global Art Programme will be object of a great exhibition that will take place in Milan for the Expo 2015. I wanted to clarify if the final works will belong to the artist or to artegiovane. I can tell you right now that your final work will belong to artegiovane. In turn, at the end of the programme, artegiovane will give to
a museum of milan. I am preparing the official winners announcement and I was wondering if you have one image of the project you presented (sketch, photo, etc.). Can you also confirm the title please? Actually I did not submit any image/ sketch with my proposal. It was all written. Frankly I am not sure what form my project will eventually take and so I dont know what image I can send you. The title of my proposal is “Introducing a Vernacular into Totalitarian Urban-Design”. we are sorry for the delay in getting back to you with documents and tickets, but we had to rearrange the 2010 schedule due to some changes in the organization. We are aware that this may have unsettled your programmes and you might have trouble in receiving the VISA on time for the scheduled departure. From my end I am completely ready to reach by the 8th Feb if the visa works out. I just want to clarify that the changes in your organisation structure will not affect the beginning of the residency in Milan. Finally they have officially announced my residency in Milan. Attached is the official announcement with all the details. Wish me luck. Looks good, Asim. Good luck! 1) A Formal Invite to the Artist. 2) A Legal Contract stating that you
will provide for accommodation, production-expenses, food, studio, return airfare as well as local transport within Italy. And also stating any stipend/artist-fees to be provided. 3) A Medical Insurance. 4) Booking of Return Ticket for Delhi-Milan. As we are the organizing committee in India, we feel extremely responsible and would be grateful if this is resolved asap. There is a small error in the spelling in my name. It should be Husen rather than Hosen. I hope it wont be too much trouble correcting it and sending me a revised copy. I can imagine that this delay has been very annoyng for you. But please believe that italian burocracy can be even worse than yours‌ could you let me know the dates of your arrival and departure as soon as you will book your return tiket to Italy, so that I can ask for your insurance? However, under these circumstances, we may need to reconsider our collaboration. Arrive in Milan on 25th February, Departure on 12th of June. I applied for the visa yesterday. hopefully i should receive it by friday. Please send to us your account banking references for transfer the money (which is the cost of the ticket) By the way, do you have any documentation about your work
(pictures, cv, atricles etc.) you can provide me by mail? One of the aim of these exchanges of residencies is to present the work of the artists involved to a network of art galleries and I would like to arrange an appointment with the coordinator as soon as possible. pl find attached the bill for flight ticket and visa for italy. As concern your residence in Milan, the apartment and the studio are inside Open Care, that is also the location of our office. The studio is an open space, for the moment without any equipment. To reach us you can take the train Malpensa Express and stop to Bovisa station. In Bovisa station take the train blue line R (passante ferroviario) destined for Rogoredo and stop to Porta Vittoria. Reach the exit Viale Molise, the first street on the right is Via Piranesi, your final destination. But in any case, I will need a table for my laptop, etc. I would probably also need a larger table like a drawing board. It will be nice if the height and angle of this working surface is adjustable to some extent. And a couple of chairs, etc. I am taking the early morning flight tomorrow. It will land in Milan at 5 pm tomorrow. We are waiting for you! have a nice trip!
IMPRESSIONS OF AIRPORTS Delhi The thulla on the gate double checks. And then again. Tries to match the image with the subject. Reluctantly, almost, he moves aside. The bags are too heavy. Among clothes and toiletries, they contain ropes, spycams, microSD, CF, various cables, an arduino with a breadboard and countless LEDs, camera, laptop, chikki, dvds, books, some paper and a couple of notebooks, pens and pencils of all sorts and also a few tubes of paint. 12 kilos over the limit and I am a few thousand rupees poorer. Surdi-boy behind the counter rounds it off to 10k. Indian Customs, where the officer treats Indian citizens with suspicion and even loathing, while he grovels in front of white skin. Where are you going what are you going to do there where are the papers and on. He is not sure he should let me pass. Going through security, the line I am standing in is disbanded. The thulla hiding behind the scanner dualmonitors, stretches his arms sleepily, walks up to us and says, this line is closed and walks off. The adjacent line very reluctantly allows us to integrate. Remove the laptops from the bag and empty your pockets. This thulla seems intrigued by my name on the passport. He beeps me around with his chakra-detector. It
beeps on my left tit and also near my left shoe. He gets me to remove the shoes and scan them, thankfully leaving my breasts alone. Its our duty he says by way of apology and I tell him that there is no issue at all. Past the security I am intercepted by an airline staff. Have you paid the excess baggage? How much? Then she takes me aside into an office with a nameless door, gives my passport to a plain-clothesman. He asks what I am carrying and where I am going and for what. He seems straightforward and believes me. Its taken 2 and a half hours to walk a 100 meters. Its paid off to come 3 hours before the flight leaves. Istanbul Terrible food on the flight. The plane takes a circuitous route and finally comes to a halt. We take a an extra extra wide bus to the airport building. Never even imagined such a wide one, almost double the width of the new low-floors in delhi. They check our boarding passes for we are in transit. Its crowded. Lots of signs declaring a fine for smoking tobacco. Smoking Banned, it says. Behind there are huge duty free shops selling mostly alcohol and tobacco. Have almost 6 hours before the next flight. They tell me on enquiring that the smo-
king area is upstairs. But upstairs there are only premier lounges. In one of them there is an arrow that cryptically says Terrace. The terrace turns out to be a cage on the terrace. Like all airport smoking rooms it is tiny, but unlike others it does not need artificial ventilation as the walls and roof are made of perforated steel. The crowd is bellowing away chimneys of smoke but being virtually outdoors we are spared the usual airport-smoking-room-horror, although it is a bit chilly. Back inside it is interesting to look at the various peoples. There seems to be a white-clad Turkish group returning from haj. Lots of Europeans. On the floor sleeping a few south Asians. All the signs are in the latin alphabet. What happened to the turki alphabet? Or was it Persian/Arabic that they followed earlier? Must be the great modernisation push by the Ataturk. There are a few Africans also. Some even Sudanese, I think, conspicuous in their peculiar dress. A burgerking lunch and lots of strolling later I am sitting in front of the gate for the flight to Milan. Unlike in Delhi the hand-baggage scan happens when you check into the boarding gate. There is not much of a wait and we climb into the aircraft. Because I didn’t queue up early I am one of the last few onto the flight and I cant find any space for my hand baggage in the overhead loft. Fortunately there is a seat empty next to mine.
Its just a 3 hour flight to Milan. The views are full of clouds and only occasionally can we see terra-firma. Milan The customs officer wants to see some papers to support my visa. I show him and he is satisfied. We have to wait for the bags for half an hour. I have instructions from Beatrice about how to reach OpenCare. I take the Malpensa Express to Bovisa. At Bovisa I am supposed to switch to a suburban line to Rogoredo, but I cant figure out whether I am supposed to buy another ticket for the suburban. I get out buy another ticket and get back in. There are lifts/escalators everywhere otherwise I don’t know how I would have managed alone with all my luggage. OpenCare is not far from the station, Porta Vittoria. The façade facing the road is made up of red backlit panels. But the rest of the building is mostly black. Have a funny halfgesture half-English conversation with the security before they understand who I am looking for. Beatrice and Barbara come down to receive me. We leave the luggage downstairs and they take me up to their office to show me around. Later they take me to the flat. Its an attic, they call it a mansarda. And then I have a quick shower before they take me to an opening somewhere. But by the time we arrive it is over. So we drop Barbara back and Beatrice and I have my first dinner in Milan
BEEEP *
A small town at the base of the Alps day 1 early in the morning meeting at machiacini for a ride to BEEEP meeting with the boss haggling and bargaining ‘n talking about water drive up the mountains to see beep Beep responsible social transformation !!!
BEEEP
A small town at the base of the Alps day 2 in the morning L-, who has taken charge of me at the residency, takes me to their recycling initiative. this is a workshop for children. they acquire waste and excess materials from different factories around BEEEP and do workshops with school children to make new things out of it. they have some beautiful industrial waste. there is wool yarn (BEEEP used to have a flourishing textile industry until a few years back), rolls of decorative lace, plastic, nuts and bolts of various sizes, wood leftovers and holes cut out from different materials and also the part from which holes have
been cut out depending on whether the factory needed the holes or the part without the holes, and ll sort of other waste. i find all this material really beautiful and perhaps i will try use some of it for my final project. the kids too have made incredible things out of all this material, mostly toys and animals. after lunch, L- takes me to a metal factory. its a medium sized establishment. they have lots of machines for metal work including laser cutting and water-jet. the owner has done many jobs for artists and museums and he is quite proud of his work. i am not really interested in industrial manufacturing but not to appear rude, i ask a few questions about this and that. he also shows us a project he is developing along with the town administration for drinking water for children. instead of a spout for water (which we both agree is rather wasteful) this is a counter for filling up water bottles, so that the kids dont have to buy water in fresh plastic bottles. when we leave i explain to L- that i do not really want to see industrial manufacturing but am interested more in craft and artisans. once Lunderstood what sort of work i wanted to see, she wanted me to meet a friend of hers who works with wrought iron and such. we drove to BEEP2 a small village nearby. but we couldnt find her friend and as we got into the car to return L- asked me if i wanted to see and old village
made of stone. ofcourse, i said. this was apparently a refuge for the village of BEEP2, perhaps from attacks from their french speaking neighbours. it was like a fortress with walls around and watch towers at the corners. strangely the ground floor walls were mostly made of river stones but higher up it was usually brick and the roofs were made of terracotta tiles. everything looked shut and there was no one around on the streets. wandering around we found one door open and we peeked in. there were some men working inside but the room was bare. L- asked them if it was ok to come inside and see. the men said something, and L- translated that it was not allowed because legislation in italy was strict for reasons of security. i later realised that she meant safety and not security, and the safety legislation was there because the structures were old and decrepit. a little further we found another door open and this was quite well furnished and brightly lit. there was an elderly women on the phone who beckoned us in when L- explained that we would like to look inside. the house was beautifully decorated with many old things. the roof was made of a series of vaulted arches that were bent in a peculiar way. as though the arch was bending down in a bow. most of the curve of the arch was actually in a horizontal position and if an architecture student
had asked me if such an arch was stable i would have said no, but the fact that the arches had not deflected under stress was proof that it was a fairly stable structure. the woman explained that all these houses here were used as cellars earlier for wine, cheese and other food by the villagers and people actually lived here only if there was threat of an attack. she also explained that usually the stairs used to be outside for accessing the upper level but she had constructed one inside because it was more comfortable in the new avatar of the house. the lower level of this house was like a living room. i pointed out some hand-made simple but exquisite pottery (as in not made on the wheel) and she replied that this was how the traditional pottery of this area looked. she invited us upstairs where she told us she had a surprise for us. upstairs was a more personal space and on one side was a loft with some mattresses. there was an exquisite collection of rugs on the wooden floor, some afghani, turki and also persian. the surprise was a beautiful view over the roofs of the village. she explained she was originally from sicily but had been living in BEEP2 for many years and that she loved old things. and she thought that it was important to conserve old things so that we dont forget about
our past. L- explained that i was trying to find craftsmen and artisans who are still working with their hands. she said that there were a few people who worked on crafts as a hobby, and she sent us away with a delicate chocolate each towards their houses. we saw a sign that talked of medieval craft on one door. but as with everyone here, L- was very hesitant to knock. its strange (for me) but people are so polite that they almost keep a distance from other people. like in opencare Bwaited for someone to finish a call before approaching his table. she would wait far away, very conciously trying to avoid disturbing. so unlike india where we always barge in and demand attention. but at the next door with a similar sign there was sound of some music and we knocked. a very tall viking looking man with wild hair and a long beard opened the door. and as always Lexplained my research. he invited us in. there were musical instruments everywhere. on his worktable was a hurdy-gurdy that he was repairing. in one corner i even pointed out a sitar. he explained that he was an expert repairer of old musical instruments. but i noticed that he was also making some from scratch. he explained a little bit about how he works. there were also swords and armour in his little shop. he was, he said, fond of medieval weapons
and fighting. he explained that he had made most of the swords and knives, as well as the armour from references in books. they apparently have a fighting competition once in a while where they dress up as medieval knights and fight it out with blunt swords. one was a viking sword, another roman, and celtic, gaulish, etc, etc. we talked a bit about work that involves physical labour as compared to desk jobs. about the emotional bond with something that has been fashioned from your hands. and about his decision to choose a profession that required physical work. he took us to the neighbouring shop, the one we had hesitated on knocking at. he pounded the door and called out a name. a short balding old man with a beard opened the door with a big smile. there was the smell of tobacco smoke inside. he does stained glass as a hobby but he had various old knick-knacks everywhere. on his table were three large piles of old stamps. one set of shelves was dedicated to miniature medieval soldiers. there was a huge metal crossbow on top of another shelf and behind it a set of sheilds made of wood and covered with leather. he explained that he too had a fetish for medieval knights. every once in a while they dressed up as medieval soldiers and had a party. the crossbow he explained was a prop for one of these events.
there were some period films that were made here, he said, and that his viking neighbour was frequently cast in them because of his looks. i could imagine the two of them as donquixote and sancho panza. he explained a bit about the stain glass techniques that he used. he said that it was getting harder to get lead because of laws to prevent lead-poisoning. so he mostly used copper and also some new material that had been developed as a replacement for lead. i asked him why he did this sort of work which was quite laborious and painstaking. he talked of the satisfaction from making something with your own hands and seeing the product slowly emerge after a lot of hardwork. we also talked about the younger generation and their ambitions, in contrast. L- then takes me to the information office to find more artisans. the guy there says that most of the houses are shut and only open for the weekend and that too mostly in the tourist season in the summer. he points us to another office. at this office L- explains the research i am trying to do on artisanal practices that have been carried forth from before the industrial revolution. there are 3 elderly people and a young girl in the office. they constantly shake their heads at the prospect of finding any such artisans. i ask L- to explain to them that i am
looking for such artisans because i want to investigate the transfer of knowledge and skills through non-formal education. my thesis being that today’s formal education teaches very abstract concepts which have got little to do with the actual experiences of an individual, while artisanal guilds teach mostly through experience and human contact. and although formal education professes to grant all individuals equal opportunities and a vast choice of profession, yet it makes individuals into a uniform group which has little to do with the local context either culturally or in terms of the environment they inhabit. experiential learning on the other hand, i feel, is constantly influenced by our surrounding society and environment. and also i am looking at all this from the indian context where homogenisation is destroying many different ways of life that have developed over hundreds of years of collective experience. we talk and talk and talk about all this. L- acts like my italian ears and mouth, doing painstaking translation both ways. they say yes, that industrialisation and modernisation will eventually destroy most of the old ways of living, and this has already happened in italy and most of western europe. they dont have any memory of what BEEEP was famous for before the industrial revolution. there was only agriculture they claim and people had
a subsistence economy based mostly on barter. the young girl remembers that there was a book written about old traditions a few years back and she goes off to get a copy. an elegantly dressed woman comes in and they all show a lot of deference towards her. it seems she is a local politician. everybody is talking to everyone and it is difficult for me to follow things. i sit down for a bit while L- explains who i am, yet again, to the politician. the young girl comes back with the book,
which ofcourse is in italian. but glancing through i dont find much info in it. it seems to be a collection of letters and drawings from way back. wish i knew enough italian to read it. as we leave it has started snowing, as L- had professed in the morning, it is beautiful. the flakes become water as they touch a surface. she drops me back to the residency where i have a solitary cold dinner in the common living room.
BEEEP
A small town at the base of the Alps day 3 i wake up and peek out of the glass door. everything is white with snow! it looks beautiful. the breakfast is rather limited. coffee and biscuits. and a tray of some fruit from which i pick an apple. L- takes me to a wood-workers factory. the grandfather started this company around 50 years ago. both his son and grandson are carrying on the tradition. in the shop-window there is an old wood table with many different old planers. they are for show and have not been used for many years. L- explains my interest in artisans and work that involves manual rather than mechanised techniques. they are almost apologetic that most of the work now is using machines. only 20-30 % of the work is now done manually. but they are very happy with technology because it helps them do work much faster. only the finishing they say is often best done manually. they take us into the factory and show us the different tools, both machines and hand-tools. as they are explaining the use of each hand-tool, i interrupt and tell them that i am very familiar with these tools because i have done an apprenticeship in wood-workshop in india. we talk about the act of creation using our hands. and try to qualify and quantify its emotional value to the ma-
ker, a difficult task. it is an interesting conversation as all three generations are there. its mostly the younger two that talk. i try to broach the subject of formal school education versus experiential education. about uniformity as compared to peculiarity. about valuejudgement of a product. we agree that the average person is looking at uniformity as an important criteria in a product and that often peculiarity is looked at like a defect. they talk about how the average person does not want to use them for wood-work but prefers shops like ikea to buy their furniture. this is primarily because of economics and as time means a lot of money here in europe, therefore their products are always more expensive than something like ikea. they also show me different kinds of timber that they have. their timber is mostly stored for 10 years before using, but not always. the wood they use is almost all from europe though very little from italy. either it comes from eastern europe or from france. they claim that the land from where timber is harvested is replanted with trees which will be cut after 10-20 years. the point out that most timber available today is from young trees while earlier only very old trees were cut. this makes the available timber not as straight and ofcource the width is less than before. they do not use any “exotic� (tropical) wood. there is a certain kind of timber (maybe oak) that is high in oil content that is used more for the outside. almost all
of it is softwood. they talk about how natural materials are very important in making a house healthy as they are not toxic and also allow a house to breath. at some point we are talking about how laws in italy make it very difficult for companies like theirs, which is a family run business, to grow. it is apparently very difficult for them to hire workers. they also talk about criteria for hiring a worker. after many of the textile factories of BEEEP shut down there were many who were unemployed. at one point they had hired some of these people but, they felt, because these people were working mostly for economic reasons, the family realised that they had to be constantly monitored to get good work. so now the young boy claimed when they interview a person for work they look for “passion”, and if they realise that someone is working only for money then they dont want them. i also ask them if there are courses for learning craft. they say there are very few in italy, although apparently there is a strong craftsmen’s union in france and france as such has tried hard to preserve artisanal work. but not so in italy. the father starts talking about how the laws are against them and that they are trying to fight to change the rules but it is very difficult. especially for a small firm like theirs because it takes a lot of effort to understand all the laws and approach the relevant people to put their case forward, and they cant spare that much time from the work
in the workshop. the son also says that unfortunately the politicians are working for only a select group and not for the common good. maybe a little brazenly, i comment that maybe this is a fault of the practice of democracy because it gives a beautiful illusion of choice and freedom, but actually we can not control anything around us. in this sense i tell them, that perhaps kingdoms and even fascism works better because if the person on top has a vision and good sense then he can achieve a lot, but in democracy there are too many people incharge and all of them are insecure about the power they possess so they do not let any visionary do anything because if he succeeds it might affect their own votebank and power. all of them including L- are aghast that i could say anything good about fascism, in fact L- pauses before translating what i am saying almost wishing me to unsay what i have said. it is built into their minds that the fascist period of italy’s history was very very bad. that there can be absolutely nothing good about it. like everyone they use the reasoning of freedom, choice and liberty as the boons of democracy, but i am reluctant to grant them the pleasure of taking those absolute concepts for granted. i tell the dad that he just said that he finds it so difficult to affect the legislation about artisanal work. so obviously he doesnt have much say in this highly democratic nation.
the father says that in a democracy everyone can not be completely happy, for it works for the larger good of society. and he also says that history has taught us that kings and dictators always work for the elite and not for the whole country. but i counter, thats exactly what his son said the politicians do today, and also we need to look at history more critically because a democratic state will never say good things about a non-democratic ideology and vice versa. he points at the example of cuba and iran as poor economies because they were not democratic. i ignore iran (because i am sure they would not agree with my views on such an obviously evil country ;-) ) but i reason that the world of democracy had a huge stake in ensuring that cuba did not succeed because they wanted to prove their point ideologically, and that the failure of cuba is more due to sanctions than anything else. they do not deny this, but the argument is getting a bit heated. he keeps talking about equality, dignity, freedom and liberty. so i give him 2 examples; the first is about two middle-income individuals, one in cuba and another in the usa. if they fall sick, the one in cuba is guaranteed free healthcare, while the us citizen may die of the credit shock if he is given treatment and if his credit history is poor then he will be denied medical care. which is a better example of liberty and dignity? the second example i
give is rather personal. i talk about how my muslim name, inspite of the fact that i am an agnostic, makes me suspect in the eyes of those same people who talk about equality and liberty. my brown skin and beard make it very difficult for me to get visas to most of the so called developed democratic countries. they judge me on a name which i was given soon after i was born and not on what my actual beliefs are. i tell them that this attitude of the “west” that claims to promote equality and liberty (even by force if you dont willingly agree) and at the same time their extremely biased and discriminatory behaviour towards those same ethnicities that they are claiming to liberate is one of the main causes of the cultural conflicts of the day. our argument goes on but it is evident that neither of the sides can be convinced about the other person’s perspective. but still i feel we have better understood eachother’s views after this severe discussion. and the discussion is civil. i am glad that they seem (maybe out of politeness which has infested european and american society completely) to allow me my point of view. in india it could have been different. After lunch we go back to BEEP2 where L- has arranged a meeting with a weaver hobbyist. she has got two miniature looms in the same cellar-fort that we visited earlier.
she explains how they work and i look on politely as though i have never had the opportunity to see a handloom before. i ask her how it works and where did she get the looms from. the looms are quite cute actually. one, she says, was made by her husband for her. the other she procured from firenze. i ask her about the raw-materials and about the dying of the strings. it is wool and all industrially dyed. she says its all industrial dyeing. the clients usually come with a swatch and they want the exact colour replicated which is very easy with chemical dying, but there is a lot of approximation in natural colours. also she says that very few natural colours are produced in italy and because of import restrictions it is very difficult to get natural dyes from outside. she used to work earlier in the dyeing section of a textile factory so i ask her what is the experiential and qualitative difference for her personally between working in a factory as compared to working with handloom. working in a factory she says was more about putting in a certain amount of time for work but here it is to satisfy her “passion” that she does this work. she has been doing this work for three years now and, she says, she has a sense of authorship with every piece she makes, something that was completely absent with the production in
the factory. One of her friends takes us to another cellar. first i am told that there is an old loom that they are taking me to but it turns out to be an old wine making cellar. perhaps a little confusion in all the translation. they dont make wine here anymore but they have made a museum of traditional wine-making in the cellar. there are many old casks of wine, a wine press, bottle corker and other paraphernalia for wine production. After we go back to BEEEP. we have come to meet a felt-maker at her shop. she seems a little reluctant to talk initially, perhaps a little reserved. she talks of how she got into this work some years back. she went and did a few courses in felt-work and macramé in switzerland. there are no such courses in italy she says although she takes limited classes herself. I come back to the question why she chose to do work that is labour-intensive. she says she likes physically challenging work, it gives her mental satisfaction. about how she gets emotionally attached to her products because they are a product of her creativity. about the satisfaction of seeing something emerge from her toil. she also says that every time she works on a product something new emerges. but often clients want a very specific kind of creation, and that can be very frustrating at times. we talk of how
standardisation and uniformity is very important in consumer psyche but how it is difficult to achieve this in craftwork and for her personally the uniformity is not even desirable. she also tells us about the BEEEP’s mayor’s project to promote craft-
work. apparently the centre of BEEEP comes under his jurisdiction and he has introduced a scheme where artisans can hire shops in the heart of town for very cheap for a period of three years to help them startup. she says that this has been a great
help to her otherwise the economics of maintaining a shop might have forced her to do other things. then she has a question for me, she asks, what sort of material do i like? i tell her i like hand made materials because they are not only dependent on the skills of a worker but also on the moment of time that they are created in and also the mood and thoughts of the artisan. i also like, i tell her, natural materials not only because of ecological concerns but also because the qualities of the material are affected by the environment within which they emerge and so every natural raw-material is slightly different, and i like these peculiarities and try to use this uniqueness in developing my work. i find the standardisation in industrial production very boring. i ask her about the wool and dying of the wool for the felt. she says that almost all of it is either from australia, south africa or south america. there are very few shepherds in the hills in europe and anyway most of them work on making cheese and not on wool production. the dyeing is all industrial. it also emerges that she works on the felt for only half the year, the colder part of the year. the rest of the time she manages a mountain hut for travellers in the alps. she helps many shepherds and cattle-herds to go up and down the mountains at the beginning and end of season. i am almost jealous of
her. i tell her about my documentary on shepherds in the himalayas and the next day i go back to give her a copy. i also tell her that if i get a chance i will try and come to her mountain hut some day. then we head to a cane artisan nearby. he is a middleaged man who has a shop full of wickerwork and rattan. he says he learnt a bit from his father and also that he went to indonesia for 6 years to learn the craft. i am impressed that he would want it so much that he spent such an extended period in south-east asia. but on further questioning him i realise that my assessment was incorrect. he says, he had some cousins in manila so he went there and then learnt the craft more as a pastime. most of the stuff in his shop is imported directly from there and he has made only a few objects himself. i ask him if i can take his photograph (following european politeness-rules i have always asked whether i can take a photograph of an artisan before taking out my camera) but for the first time i am refused this opportunity. he says no. so i just take a few snaps of his shop which he doesnt mind. the most uncraftsmen-like artisan we have met so far. even L- remarks, as we walk back, that the passion was definitely missing here.
ever asked his permission. I respect his views so i removed - has fixed an appointment with a potter next. we go to her BEEEP although a lotthis explains is the traditional um shop. ofshethe stuff is made on the wheel t A small town at the base of the Alps way pottery was made in BEEEP. ection hand only. she explains is the day 4which is made by they are curious pieces this of a distinct oranjish terracotta colour and some way pottery was made in BEEEP. they are curious pieces of have strange handles almost like ranjish terracotta colour kettle-spouts. and some have today Lhas fixed an appointment she shows me the strange handles al with her friend who works with different clays that they have. the ettle-spouts. she shows me the different clays that they ha wrought iron, the same one we were clay is pre-prepared and is availas pre-prepared sealed unable to meet earlier.and We hadis a available ble in sealed in packets. she says it packets. she says very interesting conversation but he costs between 4-10 euros a packet etween 4-10 euros a packet depending on the type. she als was very angry when i sent him a depending on the type. she also has to this blog, saying thatinside. i was a it small electric oven inside. it wouldfor richa, my wif malllink electric oven would be ideal misrepresenting him and that i had be ideal for richa, my wife, who has ust bought a pottery wheel to work in our house in india. never asked his permission. I respect just bought a pottery wheel to work his views so i removed part. in our house in india. manual work and form initiate the samehis discussions about L- has fixed an appointment with a i initiate the same discussions aboutnd artisanal techniques. manual shework is and happy to hear my point of v potter next. we go to her workshop formal education cumme shop. luck. although a lot of the stuff and artisanal techniques. she is wishes is made on the wheel there is one section which is made by hand only.
happy to hear my point of view and wishes me luck.
BEEEP
A small town at the base of the Alps day 5 in the morning i have an early appointment with Beep who is a curator with the art department at the residency. she has been working here for many years. i show her my work and also the mgroad video. she seems happy with the proposal and also my portfolio. she suggests that she may invite me for a show she is working on. finally today the sky is clear and there are beautiful views of the alps all around‌. L- takes me to a village near BEEEP where a woman is working with willow. this woman weaves thin willow branches to create different garden accessories like fences and chairs and boundaries. we drive through incredibly narrow lanes, some of which are rather steep, to reach her house. there are stacks of willow sticks lying in neat vertical benches along the walls of her house. She went to england to learn her craft. apparently willow-work is very common there. i tell her about the moravians who introduced the willow in lahaul and spiti about 150 years ago, and what a positive impact it has had on the lives of the people there. there is no willow available in italy anymore although it was used ear-
lier, she says, and it is too expensive and tedious to import it. she has planted her own willow trees in her backyard and in the jungle behind her house. she doesnt let them grow too high so that they are easy to harvest. she uses very thin branches for her work, between 10-25 mm diameter. she needs straight members, and she has stacked different species and sizes all along the walls of her house. some are reddish brown, others grey, and some a bright green. she says she is very happy with her work. it allows her to work from home and she can spend a lot of time with her kids. she loves the outdoors and living in a small village with a forest nearby is ideal for her. she has one help who is working is a small hut in the backyard. they say that they usually work outside when the weather is good but now, in winter, they are working inside. some of the willow-weaving is fairly straightforward like chics made of cane in india. but she has also done a lot of random weaving. there is one really extensive random-weave outdoor sofa-set. its beautiful. there are also lots of fences and edges for planting flowers, etc. she says that the stuff which is touching the ground usually last for 4 years but other more protected work can last upto 8 years. we talk about the modern generation and why it does not want to do
manual work. she says that even her parents always complained that she was not working with her hands, but now she is. so she says she does not want to be as critical of the new generation as her parents because she is optimistic that they will also find the right balance. she says that every generation does new things and it is not good for the older people to be too critical. the world is changing fast and young people have to keep up with new trends. i tell her that earlier art and craft were closely linked but now art has become rather conceptual and lost touch with the craftsmen. she says she is not an artist but a craftsmen, although i tell her that i think she is quite a good artist and craftsmen. later when i show her my work with bamboo she says that that is art and not her stuff because her stuff is made with a utility in mind. i disagree, because i think art also has a utility although it is often only psychological. L- has scheduled another meeting with the BEEP department of the residency. i wait for about half an hour before the main person gets free. he seems to be rather busy. i talk about my project but he is constantly working on his computer while i talk. he absentmindedly comments once in a while. he talks of his department’s projects for responsible social transformation. they are working on a project that wants to promote diversity among
mediterranean countries. for me the talk doesnt add up to the results that he shows off proudly. he asks me what my plans are after the residency, do i plan to stay on in italy? i tell him no i want to go back to india and i have lots of work lined up there. at the end he asks me what my expectations are from his department. i am taken aback a little, and i tell him i dont want anything from them. he gives me a call for proposals almost as a formality. a vague sort of meeting. then L- has scheduled another meeting for me at the residency with an artist called Beep. he is not in his office so we go looking for him around the campus. L- introduces me and hands me over. some of his work has been installed in one huge room. Initially a little reluctant, he gives me a tour of his works. the most impressive piece is a huge installation made of suspended golf balls. it portrays the exploitation of natural rubber in latin-america like a 3-d graph. there are 4-5 other pieces also. one is a set of carpets made be traditional andian craftsmen. it has a mix of flag-symbols of various countries and i notice that the chakra from the indian flag is also there. another work is a huge photograph of a traditional red-indian boat. in another room there is a 4 channel video installation showing the rural economy and also the construction of houses using traditional methods in south america. i like
the work a lot, especially because his concerns in anthropology and ecology seem to converge with my interests. later he takes me to his office and we talk about my project. it is an interesting conversation and it is good to talk to an artist with so much experience. he too asks me what are my expectations from his department. i realise that perhaps the people at the other office were also thinking about my expectations from them yesterday. they think i have come to them to impress them with my work and to get them to give me a project. i tell him the same that i dont want anything from them but that it was good talking to him. i thank him for showing me his work and tell him that i really liked
his work. he too gives me a call for proposals. a project they are trying to do in peru. it sounds like an interesting project but i am not sure i will be considered because india is too far from peru, and he admits the issue of transport remuneration from india to peru but he asks me to apply and says they will try to work out something. thats the end of all my meetings at the residency at BEEEP. it has been a great experience to come here and meet all the various people. and ofcourse L- has been a key part of the success of this trip. i have a much better idea about craft and artisanal practices in italy. and i also have a few ideas for what to do for the final project. a very very productive trip.
BEEEEEP, CENSORSHIP AND PRIVACY LAWS So today i went to see BEEP who lives in BEEP. BEEP has been working with BEEP using BEEP techniques. i asked him what rawmaterials he uses to make BEEP and he explained that he uses BEEP from BEEP which is easily available here in BEEP. the BEEP and BEEP that are required for BEEP are sourced from BEEP and is a little expensive……BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP……… Thats how the rest of my blog/ diary is going to sound i fear. In the morning today i had a meeting with BEEP (who came specially for the meeting from BEEEP) and Beep who is incharge of beep. BEEP and Beep were very worried about the contents of my blog. especially BEEP because she is very anxious that the people i talked to might object to me publishing their opinions on a public forum. according to italian privacy laws, i was told, i am supposed to inform and take permission from anyone i want to write about or if i want to show their photos on a blog. i did ask permission to take photos from the “subject” before clicking, but i did not mention that i might include it in a blog. so they can sue me. my intention in going in talking to people was not publish their
opinions but to try to understand the socio-cultural impact of a society’s transformation from craft-economy to industrial and now to postindustrial. and i had some really interesting discussions, which might not have been so if i warned them in the beginning that i was going to publish them. many of the people i talked to were quite shy and i think they would have played very safe if i projected the publication as the reason i was talking to them. for me it was more important to understand their perspective and discuss the different issues arising from our blind trajectory towards modernisation and progress. publishing this blog is secondary. frankly i loathe maintaining a diary and this is my first attempt (or was). but technically BEEP and Beep are right. by law it is an invasion of privacy in italy. but is this a sign of inherent paranoia in our society? we see the same reaction in india today if you try to photograph someone’s property and this has happened only after the brutality of sealing of so-called unauthorised buildings. i have been asked to remove the blog altogether but instead i am going to try to edit out details that reveal any persons identity. guess most of the photos will also have to be removed or blurred appropriately. i have been told to rethink the presentation of my blog (Beep said maybe i can put up some drawings
or something…. which i thought was rather vague). i feel this is a form of censorship. now that i have started this blog i want to maintain it as much as i can, but i am going to try my best to protect identities and names and hope no one sues me. so here it goes. i am editing out a lot of details to “protect privacy”. and if that too doesnt work then this blog will not be online anymore. thanks to everyone who read and appreciated the blog. and if there are any lawyers among you who can enlighten me about any loopholes in italian privacy laws that i should know of, i would be grateful. whatever happened to freedom of speech…..
A FEW DAYS IN ROMA they have booked the fast train from milan to roma for me. it takes 3 hours. it is fast although you dont feel the speed except when the pressure changes while crossing another train or while going in or out of a tunnel. the pressure on the eardrums. the train is empty and i have a window seat but for some reason my window is blackened out and i cant see anything outside. from roma termini i take a bus to piazza mancini. there benedetta comes to pick me up and we go and have some lunch. she graciously takes me
to a supermarket before taking me to the residence. the qwatz residence is situated on a beautiful winding road that slowly climbs up and down. it is a little far out from the center but it makes up for that with the greenery and the quietness. the building that houses my little flat is a modernist construction from the 70s or 80s. later she takes me into rome to meet an artist called C-. he arrives a few minutes after us so we go up together. he has the flu and refuses to shake hands or do the traditional cheek-to-cheek kiss greeting. upstairs i explain my project a little bit. he listens and comments. then he asks me to tell him a story about one of the projects. i tell him about my exploration among abandoned buildings and about the video i presented at a peecha kucha at khoj with an elaborate conspiracy theory. he also asks me what my expectations are from him, but this time i dont have to answer because benedetta rescues me and says that she just wanted me to see some of his work because she finds his way of engaging with the viewers very interesting and i am also trying an interactive project, and to discuss my project with him. he pulled out a few videos and shows me. the first one he shows is a video of a restaurant dinner he performed with 2 other artists. on the menu is not food but different things each of the artists will perform for the
people on the tables. there are things like so and so will dance for you or tell you a story about x or sing a song or give a kiss and so on. all the performances and stories have a sort of overall theme. a waitress comes and takes the order and then the artists go around performing the ordered task. the second video he shows is an auction in london. he and another artist are sitting at the head of the room. the people are bidding. the only rule is that the amount of the bid has to be a sum of 2 bank notes. eventually a bidder on the phone wins the auction with 505 euros. one note of 500 euro and another of 5 euro are handed over to the artist. they put it in their mouth and slowly gulp it down. later after it has gone through their digestive system the notes are handed over to the winner of the auction. he shows me another work which is a set of drawings made with local beer. there is a disclaimer at the bottom that says that the owner takes the work under the condition that if someone ask him to give the work he will relinquish it for free and that this condition will carry on for every subsequent owner. another work done with a mark of real gold on paper says at the bottom that the work is authenticated by the artist’s signature but if the work is sold then the signature will be invalidated. its brilliant. a sharp critique of the commercialisation of art. he gives
me an edition of each of the works to take with me but sarcastically says that i will have to keep it hidden if i want to retain possession of the first work. he also gives me a copy of some of his videos. later i go to meet mitha mami who lives way to the south towards the sea. i meeet shantanu mama for the first time. sujata, another relative of richa’s is also there for a holiday from doha. she and richa are quite close. they are very nice family and i am forcibly fed as per indian customs. although my residence is very far yet they drop me back all the way in their car. on the way we stop at sant eustachio, a famous old coffee bar. they use the gps guide to get us to my address. it is quite irritating to hear the gps give directions in her american accent, and we all joke about her. sujata says her name is sera, its got to be ! The next day benedetta drives me from the residence to close to the center of rome. she hands me a map and tells me where A-, her assistant, is waiting for me. i stumble into piazza navona and walk to piazza venezia where i miss A- initially but she spots me. we go to a small piazza nearby where i am to meet a curator. we have some time so we walk around the stalls and i taste some italian chutneys. A- is constantly pointing at things saying “look-look”. she has learned english in school but she admits that she
needs to practice by going to an english speaking country. she also knows spanish and a little french. when the curator comes we go and sit at a cafe in the sun. as we are about to order a flying bird, perhaps a pigeon, shits on me. they comment that it is considered good luck and i say its the same in india, but there is a big patch on my jacket. thankfully bird-shit doesnt stink. i talk of my project for the umpteenth time. but this curator is good to talk to. she inquires about different aspects. she says it sounds like a very interesting proposals and she likes the complexity of all the different issues i want to tackle. we exchange email addresses and i promise to send her my portfolio via email. she asks us what our plans are for the next few days and A- explains that i want to go and meet different craft-practitioners. she suggests a few streets and people nearby. we head off into the by-lanes nearby. first we see a violin maker and i have a short conversation with him about his work. he is swiss. he says he learnt the craft under a mastero many years back. he also plays a little. he says his family was opposed to his chosen profession but he ignored their advice and did what he wanted. i ask him why he enjoys the work. he talks about the satisfaction of seeing something emerge from his own hands. he says
his creations carry on for long after he has stopped working on them. they are passed on from musician to musician and even generation to generation and he likes that. we ask him if he knows any other craftsmen around and he points us to a restoration guy a few shops down the lane. we try to start a conversation with the restorer but he is rather blunt and says he has no time to talk because he is very busy. we walk around a bit more trying to find a craftsman/artist that the curator had suggested. we find his shop but it is locked. we ring the bell and someone answers from the window above. A- says i am an artist from india and the old man exclaims as though he is expecting us. we go up to his house which is a beautiful old structure with an exposed timber roof. its a little rundown but that adds to the charm, as though it is meant to be anti-slick. the old man is an artist who works a lot with craft techniques. as we talk we realise that benedetta had setup a meeting with him later in the evening and thats why he seemed to know who i was. he takes us down and shows us some of his works. they are almost all made with natural materials and have an earthy beauty about them. i especially like one work which is like a collections of pressed flowers, but on closer examination only the stalks have been taped to the board and the
flowers are delicately painted. as i am interested in transfer of knowledge from generation to generation he also shows us his son’s works which employ technological things although they have a similar aesthetic to his own works. before we leave we meet a painter friend of his who, he claims, has recently painted portraits of berlusconi himself. after, we go off towards san lorenzo where they have setup a meeting for me with another craftsmen. on the way we bump into an anti-berlusconi protest at piazza venezia with lots of cops in riot gear. its a peaceful protest and the cops are making way in front as the rally moves on. the rear is manned by more police. at sanlorenzo we go to a plexiglass artisan. it is a shop cum workshop. the shop has an incredible collection of acrylics and all sorts of plastics. he also has lots of accessories for architectural models. the university is nearby. the workshop at the back of the shop is quite simple with different kinds of cutting tools. i was hoping to see an oven for acrylic moulding but they dont do that. the shop keeper gives me a short tour. later as we are walking we step into a mechanics workshop. he is an old man over 60. he is working alone in a workshop which must have been quite busy some years back. he is very depressed about the prospect of artisanal work. craft is dead he says.
there is no work for him. he has lots of equipment of all kinds for metal work. on top of the cupboards are many trophies that are covered with bubble-wrap and taped up. he learnt the craft from his father but does not want to teach it to his children. there is no future in it he says. but he says there are amazing craftsmen in india, and i tell him how craft is disappearing slowly in india. i ask him whether he enjoys working with his hands, but rather pessimistically, he says that only if you have enough to eat can you start to think about enjoying work. i try to ak him about why the younger generation does not want to do manual work. he thinks that society and ambitions have changed and no one respects manual work. everything is moving fast and people are in a hurry and go on and on and on. no one has any time. on his worktable there is an aluminium cover of a motorcycle engine and he is trying to weld another aluminum component onto it. in one corner there is a beautiful driftwood piece, which he says is his passion. but he has no money or time for it anymore. he takes out an album from one of the cupboards. it has photos of him and his father with all sorts of metal sculptures. some are quite crass but others are beautiful. all the trophies on the top of the shelves have been made by him. we leave wishing him in boca al lupo.
then A- takes me to the colosseum. i am very disappointed with this legendary ruin. we even studied it in history of architecture. there are some interesting braces that have been installed to strengthen the structure. two sides also have these huge brick buttresses that have been added later to give support to the higher levels. we meet benedetta who is accompanied by J-, an assistant curator at the new national museum of contemporary art in rome called MAXXI. we go back to the house of the artist we met in the morning to keep our appointment. the painter is also there. the painter starts of with criticism of the structure of residencies. he says that artists give back nothing to the community and residencies are a waste of time. he tells an elaborate story to explain his position. apparently there was an italian village that specialised in stone-craft. they used to work for artists and also sometimes make tombstones (A- is translating for me as everyone is speaking in italian). being sort of revolutionaries some of the village decided to go to the US and setup an artists village based on socialist and communal principles. they wanted to excel at their craft and teach and inspire their future generations into becoming even better artists. but, the painter claimed, the experiment failed. now the descendents have mostly left stone-work and the few
who persist only make tombstones for rich american clients. benedetta tries to explain the working of her residency program and tells a story of successful social impact through a residency program somewhere in southern italy. at one point J- tries to suggest that they should talk in italian because i can not understand but the painter rejects it saying he can not follow english. the painter says that they should find a disused public property and approach the government to support them, only then, he says, will they be able to have any impact. i object saying that it is important to have institutions that are independent of government because i feel that there is a lot of political subversion in public institutions. they talk more stuff that i can not follow completely. A- has a difficult time translating the continuous conversations but she keeps prompting in my ears. later we go to an opening of a russian artist at an important gallery. the work on display is on a singular theme. they are all montages of old christian prints superimposed on photos of space and cosmonauts and planets. there doesnt seem to be any progression from one work to another. it is like a supermarket of one idea. even the idea, i feel, has not been explored properly. The next day benedetta comes to pick me up in the morning and
we head of towards the center of rome. there we go to a shop for restoration that is run by a brothersister pair. only the sister is around at first. i ask her how they got into this line of work. she says they belonged to a very large family, 14 brothers and sisters in tuscany. their father used to run a bar but the children were doing all sorts of different work like batending, car-mechnic, gardening, agriculture, etc. he and her brother were living in a beach-town in tuscany. this town was frequented by the rich from very rich families of rome and florence and so everything was very expensive and they couldnt afford to pay their bills. Maximo, her brother fell in love with a girl from rome and so he decided to shift here. for the first year he was doing all sorts of odd jobs, but his wife also introduced him to an old man who restored antique things and he worked for him for free. this old man, a mastero, was almost 90 when maximo met him. mastero’s family had always been into wood-work and restoration, but now his children did not want to learn his craft. for a few years earlier he had retired to his native tuscany but people made fun of his profession there, saying it was old world and he had to give up. so he returned to rome. he had worked in the film-industry making macquettes so he had a pension and so could afford to do what he liked. initially maximo was given only
menial work like cleaning up and and lifting things. but gradually the old man, who was apparently very cynical, started trusting him and realised that he was actually interested in learning. at the end when the old man wanted to close his shop many people offered to give him lots of money for his tools, but instead he called maximo and gave him all his tools for a few lira. this was 27 years ago. massimo and his wife took up the present shop on hire and started working. initially they also had a ceramic workshop as his wife had learnt ceramics. soon they realised that they were short staffed so they asked maximo’s sister if she would like to join their little venture. maximo’s sister had also done ceramics. at that point she was working as a laundry woman in tuscany and she was happy to get this opportunity. later though when maximo had his first child there was tension between his wife and him about taking care of children and working. so eventually his wife stopped working with her husband and started her own thing. now the brother and sister work together. later they had to stop the ceramic workshop as there was too much work in restoration that maximo couldnt handle by himself. also the ceramic work was not economically feasible as there were cheaper massproduced alternatives available in the market. now the sister does the slightly less manual work while
maximo handles the more physically demanding tasks. they go to auctions and pick up everything they find interesting. especially houses that are being abandoned or those that are going to be broken down to make new buildings. the shop is full of all sorts of things. there are old advertisements, tin-boxes for ciggarettes/candy, drawings and paintings (one even looks like an indian miniature, but could have been persian), lots of furniture, cutlery, lamps, dolls... anything that catches their fancy. i try to ask massimo to comment on transfer of knowledge from generation to generation. they say that their father was very open to new ideas. he never forced them to do anything. as an example he tells a story about his elder brother who had been working in sicily for many years and returned to their village. he had long hair and a beard and the villagers were very disapproving. one day his uncle came to the house to beat up this brother and get him to cut his hair. but his father refused to let the uncle talk to his son. he said they are my children and i dont have a problem and he will not let the uncle interfere with his children. the father used to run the local bar in the village and so there was always some action happening in their house. his father was also very easy going about money from his clients but the mother made up for
it by being persistent. they always did some work or the other at home. they were expected to be responsible and take care of themselves. then he tells another story about the only time his father physically beat him. they used to have telegrams in those days and once massimo was asked to go and get it from the post office. but he refused. and that really pissed off his father who ran behind him around the village until he caught him. he says, they were always expected to obey older people. an old man sitting in the village square would ask him to get a ciggarette from the shop. and he would go up the village to get it even if he didnt like the man. there was respect for older people earlier, massimo says, which is sorely lacking now. i ask him whether he has tried to teach his skills to his children, but he says that he doesnt want to push them into a particular profession. his elder son did come and try to understand the work some time back, but now he is a professional musician. i ask them about the school education system and its impact on the younger generation. they both exclaim that schools are spoiling children. kids are not given any serious responsibilities and so when thsy graduate and are faced with the real world they are at a loss about how to handle life. massimo also says that the media and consumerism have had a bad influence on the younger generation by promoting
passive entertainment which does not require any initiative from an individual. also, he says, it has created a generation of short attention span and children are easily distracted and are not able to concentrate on any activity that requires patience. his sister also says that when they were kids they learnt a lot in the village piazza. the piazza was almost an informal institution where children were exposed to not only different political views but also experienced the dynamics between people of different backgrounds and age. it taught them amny things that were not possible to teach in a formal institution like the school. this activity in the piazzas now is completely dead, she claimed, although massimo thought it is still there to some extent. the other thing they both talk about is the respect young people used to have for the oldr generations. that is completely gone now. today children think that they are part of the future and feel that the older genration has nothing to teach them. later we go have lunch with a friend of benedetta’s. the neighbourhood she lives in is full of imigrants. chinese, srilankan, bangladeshi, albanians, etc. where she parks her car, near an indian restaurant, the walls are plastered with posters in bengali. later we go to a famous gellateria to try some of their icecreams but the shop is crowded with
tourists and we do not fancy waiting for half an hour to get a scoop, so we go to a smaller gellateria further down the road. then we head off to the shop of a family that has been repairing puppets for 3 generations. The shop is tiny but it is crowded with all sorts of knick-knacks. one window in particular has an incredible colection of doll-heads made of ceramic. they are piled up almost like a pyramid of skulls in a catacomb. an old woman and her son run the shop now. the woman’s father started this work first. they were originally from napoli. after the second world war his great-grandmother sent his grandfather and his brothers to help the local lords repair their devastated castles. there was no other work them. so slowly through trial and error he learnt how to repair furniture and ceramics, etc. afterwords he moved to rome and set up this shop which was repairing all sorts of things, but especially the old ceramic dolls that kids used to have back then. i initiate the same discussions about craft and education. the son says that when he was a kid his school-mates used to make fun of him because he was not dressed properly like them and because he used to spend a lot of time at his parents shop. initially his parents asked him to do simple tasks and slowly he became good at various techniques. they would ask him to get a certain
plate from the shelve but he didnt know the difference between different styles of ceramic so he started asking and slowly got to identify every style that he came across. he says that this kind of work can be learnt properly only if you start as a young kid. older kids dont have the patience to learn slowly. he says that the younger generation today is after qiuck-fix solutions and this is a result of how society behaves today and the sort of ambitions people are expected to have. while talking about formal education and degrees, he gives an interesting example. he shows us a plate which he has restored which is apparently 300 years old. he says that if the plate had to be restored by a professional restorer who was qualified by an institution then the plate would be subjected to chemical analysis and various other tests before starting any restoration. it would be stored in a controlled climate, worked upon by special instruments and finally after many weeks of work and an expenditure of a few thousand euros the plate would be finally declared restored. on the other hand he as an artisan has come across many such plates and knows eaxctly what technique to follow and he can repair it in a few hours and charge only a few euros for it. in some ways i infer that he is trying to talk about the commodification of livelihood, but he tells it like he is saying an anecdote.
SOME PEOPLE I MET IN CATANIA we went to see a basket maker. his shop was located on the corner of a big piazza. he was drinking coffee across the shop and the old man hollered at us to wait. after finishing his coffee he came complaining in the loud sicilian manner. i got introduced through Ale, my interpreter, and we tried to talk to him about the future of craft. he was really pissed. he said craft is dead. young people are too lazy to work. young people dont want to do any work. poor Ale took it rather personally because she is young too. the old man was loud and perhaps even obnoxious. i liked him and i wished for the umpteenth time that i could converse with him directly. he said he learnt the craft from his father starting from when he was 7 years old. they used to get most of the cane and bamboo from india and singapore. during the war this material was not available so they used local sicilian materials like straw, a cane-like grass he showed and also willow. he had some interesting bamboo in his shop, and his worktable was properly equiped, but he said that he doesnt work anymore. nobody wants to buy this stuff. they want mass-produced stuff. anyway his work is rather expensive because of the time it takes him to make something.
as we walk off Ale exclaims, he was crazy! but i liked him. on the way back i try to talk to Ale about why i agree with the old man that young people today dont want to do physical work. in the evening we go to see a candle maker. another loud old man. but he is friendly and wants to talk about his work. his family has been making candles for 200 years. he has a mammoth 2 m high candle which is almost 300 mm in diameter. it is used for religious events he tells us. it is made be heat compressing 8 candles together. most of his candles are for religious events, but he also shows us some cheap ones that people who dont have electricity come to buy. i am intrigued, who doesnt have electricity in italy !? it seems these are people who cant afford to pay the electricity bill so they have been disconnected from the grid.for him his work is his passion. he says no one can do this sort of work without passion. and although his own son doesnt work with him yet 2 of his nephews have carried forward the work. he also talks of his 5 year old grandson who is apparently infatuated with candle-making. he even dreams of them, the grandfather says. he is very happy about this passion of his grandson. thankfully for him the religious requirement of candles has let him keep his craft. and although he is not optimistic about the future but atleast he is doing ok econo-
mically for now. he too says that young people today dont want to do any work, much to the discomfort of poor Ale. Ale takes me to see the shop of a family that has been working with knives. the family has been in this trade for 4 generations. the present generation is a man of around 45-50. he is soft-spoken and polite. his grandfather and greatgrandfather used to make implements for agriculture and carpenters, etc. later they started making knives as the market for those implements died out. now they dont even make knives. the only working tool in his shop is a sharpening wheel. there are many kinds of knives but most have been bought from somewhere to be resold. there is an incredible variety: samurai swords, nepali khukri, arab knives, swiss-knives, folding and sliding blades, kitchen knives, maybe a thousand different blades. another day we go to see a puppeteer family. they are quite famous in catania. they have been making puppets for 4 generations. first they were in napoli but have been here for about a hundred years. the main guy is an old man of around 65. his mother is also there. i ask them about the origin of the work amongst the family. it seems the grandfather of the old man was a multi-talented craftsmen in napoli.
and at some point he took up puppets as his trade. earlier there used to be puppet theatres in every sizable town and there would be shows everyday. now they have a show maybe once in a month. in better years they have travelled to some big puppet festivals all over the world. he shows us posters and photos. he takes off one of the larger puppets and hands it over to me to manipulate, but i buckle under the tremendous weight of this steel-clad
knight. there are many sizes and kinds of puppets in his shop, many that are more than 100 years old. he says he has a store full of many more puppets and tried to get the city to open a museum but it didnt work out. i ask him about the future of puppetry and he says what future there is no present! but some of the younger generation has continued working with puppets so perhaps they will survive after all.
STREET MARKETS IN CATANIA there are two big street markets in catania. the one near the archi della marina is a market for fruit, vegetables, meat, cheeses and lots and lots of fish. sicily being an island is rather partial to fish in their diet. there were all sorts of sea-animals and weeds. a shopkeeper proudly showed of a row of octopuses by slapping them and showing us the recoil of the animal. they were still alive. some crabs were also crawling around and the fish looked recently dead. some specimen of swordfish were very impressive to look at, but i was told that these were rather small. it was actually not so different from an indian fishmarket. this market is open only in the fore-noon. i walked past it yesterday afternoon when they were cleaning up. there was garbage all over the place and the fish-stink was quite strong. unlike in india where most of the cleaning is manual here they use mechanisation. here in catania the concept of conformity and cleanliness is a little different from the bigger italian cities. the antiseptic-ness and the obsession with new-ness and uniformity is not so strong. walls are pealing, pavements are rundown, you can see people spitting once in a while, there is garbage lying around (and even flying plastic packets because
the sea-breeze is rather strong), the church bells ring every hour but not at the same time, some roads are really steep so much so that a road turns into stairs at places, people dont mind wearing old clothes (a capitalist sacrilege), there is much mould on the walls, sometimes you can see people smoking in-doors in public areas, people can be rude and loud unlike the continuous impersonal politeness of milan, they stop you and exclaim, they shut shop if they dont feel like working‌.. many of these observations may be taken in a negative sense, but to me these are the things that give character to a place. death to uniformity !!! screw politeness !!! the other market is situated in the vast labyrinth of streets starting from piazza carlo alberto. it is by far the largest street market i have seen so far. both the markets are open everyday except sunday and are on till around 2pm. this market has almost everything. lots of clothes and accessories, cosmetics, dvds, cutlery, and ofcourse meat and vegetables. there are many chinese and bangladeshi shops also. the chinese here are, as everywhere, quite ghettoish. they talk their own language and stick to their own kind. apparently there is a huge chinese human-trafficking business
all over italy. initially a new illegal immigrant is given food and shelter but made to work all day in already established chinese businesses. after 3-5 years the rest of the community helps them setup a business of their own. at the end of the market there is garbage everywhere. empty cartons, partly spoilt fruits and vegetables, wooden boxes, styrofoam trays for ice and ofcourse plastic in all sizes and shapes. the strong breeze makes beautiful eddies of trash, especially in corners where lots of things collect. there are also people rummaging through the garbage for usable stuff. they are mostly looking for discarded food-stuff that is not completely spoilt. i especially notice a mother-daughter pair. the mother sifts through the garbage while the daughter pushes a super-market trolley behind her in which they are storing what they find. the daughter never handles the trash herself. in the plazas in catania there are usually a few benches to sit on (not that common in the vast empty plazas of milan and rome) and one morning i am sitting in a plaza smoking a cancer-stick. there is a water spout closeby which is spilling water all over the plaza because of the wind. the wind here gets really amplified along some of the straighter roads. in this place it is rather erratic and sometimes the water falls off one side of the basin
and then at the next moment it is spilling onto the other side. there are 2 young boys also sitting on one of the benches who drink some water from the spout. a little later some more young people passing by also use the spout. an old man walking by stops and wets the tips of his right-hand thumb and forefinger and drinks some water. then he reaches out and shuts the water. i hadnt even realised there was a faucet. some more young people come to have a drink but dont bother shutting the tap. i sat there for one hour looking at the water-spout. most of the elderly people always shut the tap, the young ones never put it off. there is a huge debate raging in italy about water. the government wants to privatise water-supply. so far it has been an exclusively publicservice. some people are trying hard to oppose this privatisation. there is a lot of water in most parts of italy. milan has lots of water from springs in the alps. rome also has a lot of springs. catania is no different. there is no supply issue with water in most italian cities. the quality of water is also very good, as it mostly comes from springs. i have been drinking tap water everywhere for the last 6 weeks. there doesnt seem to be any reason to privatise water except that it can become a profitable business at the expense of the citizens. and ofcourse almost everyone in the bigger cities now drinks only
bottled water. some people hardly drink any natural water they only have sparkling instead. there is this interesting film on bottled water called story of bottled water that talks about how after coke and pepsi had saturated the beverages market they came to the conclusion that tap-water was their biggest enemy. so they set about doing propaganda making people believe that tapwater was bad. we in india think tap water is bad. and it is often quite polluted. but here in europe tap water is very safe but still most of the big-city population drinks only bottled water. in milan, where i usually eat lunch, a bottle of water and a cafe is included in the cost of lunch. they give you a half liter plastic bottle and it is considered extremely eccentric if
i ask for water from the tap. infact many places in milan have refused to give me tap water. someone told me they are worried about litigation in case i drink tap-water and fall sick and sue them. i remember i was talking to some government engineers in bhopal about water. they said that some local traditional medicine practitioners were propounding the view that filtered water from RO and UV systems was bad for children because it didnt allow their immune system to develop. there are some people in italy though who are trying to fight water in plastic bottles. they have a system of reusable glass bottles that they fill up from local springs. i observed this both in biella and catania.
INDUSTRY, POLITICS, MEDIA AND EDUCATION Our society/economy today is based on principles of consumption so much so that citizens are often referred to as consumers. In fact the word ‘consume’ means to use up or finish. This is a drastic shift from earlier craft-based societies where ideas of thrift and sustainability were inherent. Today when highscience is looking at sustainability and conservation of resources as the only hope for long-term survival of our race, I feel, it has become imperative that we look back at our ancestral knowledge-base to see how they achieved a balance between needs and available resources, rather than relying on new-technology for solutions. The problem with industrial technology is that although it may provide effective short-term solutions to problems, yet in the long term it almost always generates some other new problem that we recognise only many years later. And then we try to develop newer technologies to solve these problems which in turn create more complicated problems for the future, ad infinitum. In craft-based societies new technology is developed through trial and error over many generations of users, and so any new development is based not only on the experience
of current practitioners but it draws from the experience of the past. The creator and the user almost always know each other and live in close proximity so there is constant feedback. They are automatically concerned about the overall good of any practice because they understand that it will affect them too. Society today works in a completely different way. We think of the new as better practice and this is particularly embodied in the market economy. We are under constant pressure, through the all-pervasive media, to consume newer and newer products so much so that even the old has become a new commodity. For example the fashion of faded jeans, which is a result of overuse, is now available as fresh pre-faded jeans in the market and they are more expensive than normal jeans. At the same time almost everything has been converted into a buyable commodity, be it water (earlier a natural community resource) or learning (an inherent part of growing-up) This cycle of consumption is heavily favourable to industry and industry has tried hard in the last few decades to create products that will last only for a limited time because otherwise nobody would want
to buy any more. Industry has seeped into politics to such an extent that governments that profess to work for the people are today mostly working for the interests of industry. This collaboration between industry, politics and media has created a unity in terms of innovation and evolution. Ideas outside this box are almost impossible to implement. One of the most influential institutions of this unity is the method of education. We send our children to schools to learn theoretical and abstract concepts and very little is taught about their immediate surroundings/context. Kids today all over the world are learning more and more similar things and this has created a society of semi-clones. Whether you study in Sicily or Milan you will have to read through the same text-books. Education is supposed to open up the world of choice and provide equal opportunities for all while I feel it does exactly the opposite. You can choose professions only from a limited group within the industrial-market complex, and opportunities are extremely limited for students who cannot perform well in the school evaluation. In effect it has created a solitary basis of judging someone’s ability: school examination. If you are good at something else it does not matter. Many of these issues are easy to
spot in Italy for an outsider. There is no doubt that politics, media and industry is mixed up and they are all aiding each other. For them profit is the only criteria and as long as people can be made to believe that they have choice and that they can control their lives, it does not matter if they actually have any choices. Education, I have come to realise, is a huge problem in Italy. Right now Italy has whole generations of kids who have compulsory school and then go to university only to find no work. Fresh graduates have to work for free in the beginning. By the time a young person has started earning enough he/she is already old! At the same time craft is almost dead, or it has become a fashionable hobby. Â There is nothing new in what I am saying here, I am only trying to show the context which has influenced my actions. I am not trying to persuade you to live differently. Nor is my project about the evils of modern society. Instead, in this project I am looking at the humanistic aspects of craft practice; its meditative quality, the attachment between the work and the worker, the process of slow evolution and the physical act of manual labour. All this will culminate in the spectacle of the vernissage where industrialisation will finally seep into the artwork.