Critical Zones — In Search of a Common Ground is an exhibition that was conceived by the French philosopher, Bruno Latour, and Peter Weibel of the Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany. Sadly, Latour passed away before the travelling version of the exhibition made its way to the subcontinent, to Mumbai and Colombo before coming to Calcutta, where it is currently open for viewing at the exhibition galleries of the Indian Museum.
The idea of the exhibition was triggered by a basic, scientific understanding: we are sitting on top of a ball of rock, mulch and gas, most of which is inimical to any kind of life; the area in which we can survive, the critical zone that we can experience with our senses and explore as human beings, from the depths we can reach into the ground to the outer limit of our atmosphere, is only a few kilometres thick; just as disease can lay siege to a human body and damage it, this critical zone is now badly affected by human activity over the millennia and, especially, over the last two hundred years — in fact, it has now entered, or needs to rapidly enter, an ICU in order to survive. Building on this, the exhibition pulls together elements of scientific, ecological work, philosophical thought, and artistic practices that address this science and this situation. The exhibited works are only one part of the project; equally important is what the curators call “the activation” of the exhibition, where people who come to the exhibition space become involved in interacting with the work and connected activities and discussions.
As the two German co-curators explained at a discussion the other day, it is not the aim of the exhibition to ‘teach’ the viewers, or to simply impart ecological awareness to them, or be the vehicle conveying information from current environmental science to the layperson. The aim, rather, is to create an experience which triggers and encourages thinking about our situation, about what the imminent collapse of our life-system as we know it might mean, and the changes and challenges we have to address, not just at a practical level but also at deeper, existential strata.
It is not in the scope of this column to review the exhibition. Suffice it to say that it’s a complex, challenging and, yet, fun experience and should you have time, well worth a visit. Not all the pieces are great. You might, as I did, have a problem with the general trend in contemporary art to reach for a vitrine at the drop of a hat or put whole swodges of text on a desk or the wall for the viewer to read. Like me, you may not respond to work that can only be understood once you’ve done a small course of class homework on it. Having said that, and fully acknowledging that the exhibition is meant to be seen as a whole, the pieces that are good in the show are really superb.
For me, there are a couple of things of meta-interest around this show. The first is the different definition of an exhibition or an art show: this marshalling of work is not about art with a capital A, as many still continue to understand it. For instance, phrases such as ‘skilled in the medium’, ‘bravura rendering’, ‘aesthetic achievement’, ‘mastery of form’ become meaningless. Here, a simple piece with not much by way of showing off of skill might be as or more effective than a more complicated presentation; or, two or three individual works might gang up to form a revelatory cluster in your mind; or a piece may bore you but still set off a chain of thought because of the context that has been created. It’s not that this is the first time something like this has been attempted; it’s just that here, in the World Capital of Looking Backward, we don’t see this kind of thing very often.
Next, I found that the whole idea of ‘the critical zone’ set off all sorts of thoughts — contrapuntal and contradictory — about how one could apply the concept to Calcutta. Let’s leave aside, for a moment, the image this exhibition throws up, that we humans and all other living things are basically inhabiting a layer that is like hair on top of a balding head. Let us perhaps ask instead what is the intersection of different critical zones at which we, as a city of about 16 million people, find ourselves?
Are we, for instance, really a secular city surrounded by a tide of weaponised religiosity or are our outer promontories already under the water of majoritarian fundamentalism? What does it mean when we start seeing new-fangled pujas of all sorts every other week? What do we need to do to stop more ground from slipping into the rising water level? Then, how are we doing with our public spaces? Quite apart from the environmental concerns, are we not in a critical zone vis-á -vis how anti-pedestrian Calcutta has become? In a city where the vast majority of people travel by public transport or bicycle, why are we continuing to so grotesquely privilege the private motor car? In a city where people need an affordable taxi service, why are our yellow taxis being run into the graveyard to the advantage of the extortionately expensive app-based taxis?
Then, culturally, how long can we survive as performing creatures enclosed in the Cage of Past Glories? When will we start producing something that doesn’t ape (usually years afterwards) whatever is trending in other cities? In terms of our built heritage, how much of our past (the past that needs to be preserved and protected so that we and future generations can learn from it) do we irretrievably pawn off to the builder lobby? How long do we have before we are left with barely a trace of our rich and complex centuries-long history, before we completely turn into a vast slum of defunct shopping malls and empty multistorey blocks?
At a discussion around the exhibition in the courtyard lawn of the Indian Museum, somebody pointed out that “we all know the sea will reach the southern edges of Calcutta possibly within thirty years.” The question that rises from the criss-cross of critical zones is what kind of a seaside town do we want to leave for the future inhabitants of our city?
