The Past is Present
Anjan Modak
Speaking of journey, what comes to my mind first is shifting homes. Having seen my parents work as migrant labourers, home has never been a fixed concept for me. And I think my journey as an artist is provoked by such volatility, the lack of security, the exposure to harsh circumstances and a reality cantering intense physical labour.
Despite being graduates, my parents had suffered from unemployment and moved to Delhi from Calcutta in search of work. As a child, I moved with them from one site to another, living in temporary shelters. But the lack of security couldn’t dominate the cultural spirits of my parents. They have been a part of the rich Marxist-socialist atmosphere in Bengal. Singing, reciting poetry, street plays, and intellectual discussions were part of our household practice. My parent’s indomitable enthusiasm, formed a community of cultural practitioners within the industrial environment. And it is the versatility of my early experiences that developed my later artistic voice, translated into a visual language where the past is ever-present in different silhouettes.
I remember my mother carrying me against her body while climbing significant heights at construction sites, balancing bricks on her head. The memory of the risk and the physical potential of the human body inspires me to explore the life of labourers as an artist. At a glance, what is ordinary, turns extraordinary when seen from another perspective, and I think it is the same that compels my work to carry certain surreal qualities. I am interested in depicting an experience beyond its material condition, showing it as a psychological condition and interpreting it in my works through allegories or satires. As an artist, I intend to capture and narrate the intangible, psychological experience of hardship and labour to infiltrate minds and expose them to this side of reality and human experience.
