Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, who collaborate under the collective Thukral and Tagra, often use games as a device to draw viewers to their work, but don’t be fool by the playfulness of their installations or the colourful imagery of their paintings, it’s all done to raise awareness about serious societal issues.
“It’s a tough question that we ask ourselves
and our peers: ‘What does an artist do in these volatile times?’” says Sumir
Tagra, adding that interest in responding to social issues has always been at
the heart of the duo’s practice. “We want to work on projects that have a
poetic narrative yet also have layers of information,” he says
“We feel there is a lot to speak up
about, and through an artistic voice we can respond to urgency and take risks
to make things more empathetic and humble,” Jiten Thukral adds.
Since 2004 when they first teamed up,
the artists have dwelt on the rise of consumerism amongst India’s middle class,
looking at the aspirations of Indian youth, their search for a better life in a
big city or another country, and the harsh realities that can also be
associated with rising up the social ladder.
“We were interested in the aspirations
and when success is attained how it is manifested, what does it signify, how
does it impact the family, the parents, how one values life, basically all of
its effects. And these are questions which we asked ourselves as well,” Tagra
says.
For their latest project, Bread,
Circuses & TBD — now showing at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in
northern England until September 1, 2019 — the artists have devised a game to
help audiences connect with the plight of Indian farmers.
Fragmentation of land holdings, lower
crop yields, inherited indebtedness, rising inflation are just some of the
problems currently facing farming communities in India, leading to suicide
amongst many farmers. In fact, after several years of extensive research,
involving conversation with people in 15-20 villages in Punjab, the two artists
have identified 100 issues that are the starting point of their latest
installation in Yorkshire.
“We’re not reporters, so we have to
respond in our own way,” Tagra explains, adding “research takes us to the real
issues; we feel the skin of it and try to understand the pain and only then we
can make any sense of what we are responding to.”
He later points out that in India,
“farmers are wrestling with invisible issues, which we were aware of, but we
weren’t sure how to put them together and analyse them,” adding, “We also
didn’t want to respond with the visual of what we had discovered, but rather
use these as a background for the work that we are trying to create on canvas.”
Tagra describes Bread, Circuses &
TBD as a culmination of their research over the last 10 years, adding that the
installation also incorporates their interest in game theory as they like to
give an opportunity to viewers to “physically connect with the artwork and the
issues” by participating in a games that subtly leads them to dig deeper into
the meaning of the work.
“We wanted to have this game centre
stage, to open up the discussion,” Thukral adds.
The central installation Farmer is a
Wrestler is a twister-like game that invites participants to stand on a giant
circle and try seven traditional wrestling manoeuvers following a sequence of
numbers, each representing a trial faced by farmers, such as global warming,
suicide, debt (all listed on an adjacent wall).
One sequence refers to the distress and
resulting protests caused when the Indian government sets the minimum price of
produce too low, another refers to farmers having lower yields because they have
less land, a result of land reforms and the subdivisions of land between sons
each generation. As participants follow the instruction and perform the
manoeuvers they will come to appreciate the weight of compounding problems
faced by farmers.
“I think one of the most important
elements of this work is audience engagement. Some of the movement can be a bit
painful, which is another way to relate to the farmers,” Tagra says.
On the walls, a huge circular painting,
broken up in several pieces, showcases an endless scene of wrestlers,
practising Kushti.
“We wanted to abstract the
conversation we had, rather than use it as a subject matter,” explains Tagra,
pointing out that the dark blue base layer of the painting reflects the
twilight in the village — the time of day when the artists usually interviewed
the farmers and their families — while the use of highlighting pen to draw the
figures emphasises the issues now under discussion.
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