#219: The Kochi Edition 🌊 🎨 🤓
Dear reader,
I write to you from a room in Fort Kochi. It’s been a fulfilling four days admiring the explosion of art that is the Biennale, befriending cats, belting fabulous sadhyas and local cuisine, and letting all the visual stimulus soak in. I also spotted a dolphin in the water, which adds to my general state of satisfaction.
For this newsletter, I thought I’d show you some of my favorite works, accompanied by a poem, note or quote:
“the cool night before
star showers: so sticky so
warm so full of light”
-from Summer Haibun by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
“Either way we call it love because we want to believe that there is a force larger than us that makes us capable of caring about something more than ourselves. A force untouched by the exterior world. The closest thing we have to permanence. The closest thing we have to home.”
-Tania De Rozario, And The Walls Come Crumbling Down
Cities speak to us in infinite ways. Notes from a City Unknown by Seher Shah is a portfolio of thirty-two screen prints on paper, explores the city through sites of fissure, complexity and contradiction. Through poetic notations composed alongside architectural forms, the Notes draw on observations and reflections, both historic and personal, gathered over the last seven years.
“I am not shaving, but I will tell you about the mornings
with a full beard and the blade in my hand,
when my eyes don’t recognize themselves
in a mirror echoed with a hundred faces
I have washed and shaved—it is in that split second,
when perhaps the roses drink and the clouds form,
when perhaps the spider spins and rain transforms,
that I most understand the invisibility of life
and the intensity of vanishing, like steam
at the slick edges of the mirror, without a trace.”
-from Shaving by Richard Blanco
This was my favorite work at the Students’ Biennale. Meera K M used found material from Kochi to convert this into a space that transforms the way of observing. Such a beautiful way to emphasise slowness and co-existence with nature. My favorite part was the placard that said ‘Walk like snail not to step on a snail.’
Reminded me of this poem I read a long long time ago:
What One Approves, Another Scorns by Arthur Guiterman
What one approves,
another scorns,
and thus
his nature each discloses.
You find the rosebush
full of thorns,
I find the
thornbush full of roses.
“Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away.”
-from Epitaph by Merrit Malloy
Sketching Session, Sir JJ School of Art / Photograph by Homai Vyarawalla ❤️
I invite you to add a song that reminds you of home to this playlist.
Here Together by W. S. Merwin
These days I can see us clinging to each other
as we are swept along by the current
I am clinging to you to keep you from
being swept away and you are clinging to me
we see the shores blurring past as we hold
each other in the rushing current
the daylight rushes unheard far above us
how long will we be swept along in the daylight
how long will we cling together in the night
and where will it carry us together
“Darkness comes early
This time of year
Making it hard
To recognize familiar faces
In those of strangers.”
-from Hide and Seek by Charles Simic
“The ‘you’ of five years ago was made from different stuff than the ‘you’ of today. Nature is an event that never stops.”
-Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life
“mouth melts with memory -
toes curl in wet sand
the sea is in my ear,
and me standing here
sun-stunned”
-from Sabotage by Shirley Wright
That’s all for now, folks! Hope you enjoyed this curation and format I’ve been meaning to experiment with. It was super fun to put together, and I can’t wait to do this for different art shows and experiences I encounter in the future. Lots more to come on Instagram @woohoochild once I start processing some of these art encounters from the Biennale.
Good night and sweet dreams,
Rohini
If you like this newsletter, here are some of the ways you can support me:
Become a paid subscriber | Order my merch | Join the Instagram community