The Complexity of Democracy: Kaladham as a Case Study (Part 2)

In its second iteration, Anita Dube reimagines the exhibition format, drawing from artistic practices in Kaladam while deepening her exploration of a polyphonic principle—one attuned to a post-colonial condition and the contradictions that reflect socio-political economies. The first part of the exhibition ‘The Complexity of Democracy’ tried to challenge the liberal notion of a level playing field by annotating caste, class, religion and economic background of the artists but could not break out of the conventions of exhibition making. In this second iteration, I have been pushed towards another structure, that of a mela, out of necessity. A festive field of thought, play and camaraderie, one that can include many diverse practices, and in the process propose a polyphonic curatorial principle attuned to our messy post-colonial conditions, full of contradictions that mirror sub socio-political economies.

My curation is a response to conditions of marginality and histories of exclusion that I encountered in Kaladham. When the means of production depend on laboring bodies and their skillsets more than laboring minds and their skillsets, the choice of materials and the stories that are told are different. These emerge from, and are determined by, a ‘lack’, and are tethered to the structural and psychic wounds of the colonial experience, which continued for many even after India became independent. In the void between embodied and conceptual labor, the undercover Brahmanical ruling class—aligned with discursive models absorbed from Euro-American white cultures—continues to easily outmaneuver the nostalgic, tradition-bound practices coming from the rural hinterland.