'Dhwani: A contemporary art installation evokes the Kundalini energy at a Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata
Every year, Durga Puja pandals across the country turn into canvases for public art. By placing ‘Dhwani’ in such a setting, this collaboration between Shilo Shiv Suleman and Rajasthan’s Lohar community dissolves binaries of high art and folk art
At the Tridhara Durga Puja, Kolkata, a contemporary art installation is catching the eye of visitors. Dhwani, a sculptural work, 12 feet tall and weighing 150 kilos, has been envisioned as a manifestation of the Kundalini Shakti. Curated by Myna Mukherjee and produced by Shilo Suleman in collaboration with members of the Lohar community of blacksmiths in Rajasthan, the installation is a multi-layered one.
For one, it brings together the age-old tradition of metalwork with new age media. In a way, it breaks the silos of folk and contemporary art. Every year, the Durga Puja pandals across the country turn into canvases for public art, where millions of people encounter different visual vocabularies outside the white cube space. For Mukherjee, it was important to place contemporary art within pandals, which have long been the meeting point for community, rituals and politics. “...it is about dissolving the hierarchies between high art and popular art, folk and contemporary, ritual and avant-garde. Dhwani becomes part of that continuum—an offering to the goddess, but also a reminder that art belongs to everyone, not just to the privileged few," she adds.
The golden sheen of Dhwani stands in stark contrast to the all-black theme of the pandal designed by Gouranga Kuila, which subverts the notion of white as pure and black as inauspicious. According to Mukherjee, it was during colonial rule that the British obsession with white as a pure colour relegated black to an ominous one. “Yet Bengal’s cosmologies tell another story: Kali, Shyama, tantric night rituals, and indigenous goddess traditions have long celebrated darkness as fertile, fierce, and divine. Here, black is not an absence of power but a reclamation of precolonial lineages and a resistance to erasure. In pre-Brahmanical goddess traditions, black was associated with fertility, the soil and feminine power," she explains. By integrating black into the theme of the pandal, Kuila wants to remind the viewers of a more pluralistic history of the goddess—one that draws from the tribal, tantric, and folk practices. “In that sense, this pandal is not just different visually, but politically—it challenges us to remember what has been overwritten," says Mukherjee.
The Kundalini energy holds deep meaning for Shilo. She calls it a serpentine force, a primordial creative force, the divine feminine, and more. “For an artist, there is a lifelong relationship with the original creative spirit. In my own practice, the Kundalini has informed everything, from my breath to the brushstrokes," she says. Dhwani is an extension of Shilo’s visual language, which lies at the intersection of themes such as social change, technology, feminism and magical realism.
The intention of the artist in creating this work, which features sound and motion sensors, was to place both ritual and the sacred in a contemporary context. The interactive nature of Dhwani allows for people to explore their devotion in a new way. “I would like to continue exploring what modern bhakti could look like with large-scale ritual objects that allow for a convergence with technology," she adds.
Dhwani is a result of work by a primarily all-women team. For instance, the idea took root during a collaboration with Shilo and Colleena Shakti, an Odissi dancer, in July. The elements related to motion and sound sensors have been envisaged by Laxita, an electronics engineer, who has had a long association with Shilo. “My team, which works out of the studio located in the Hawa Mahal complex of Jaipur, is primarily female. The energy permeating the work, right from the first sketch to the final setup, has been imbued with female divinity. It is something that I find extremely empowering," says Shilo.
The collaboration with the Lohar communities of Rajasthan also holds deep meaning for the artist. When she moved to Jaipur nearly five years back, she wanted to deepen her engagement with brass work. “I also wanted to trace my mother’s lineage. In the process, I found out that we come from the Lohar community of Rajasthan. And as the universe would have it, the oldest and most trusted karigars in my team—Shehzaad and Babulal—come from the same community as my family," she elaborates. This is a relationship that has been built over the years and has spanned many projects. The collaboration is a complex albeit meaningful one, with the resulting work being even better than the initial idea. For Mukherjee, such work is not a binary between tradition and modernity but a living, breathing dialogue between them. As a curator, my role is to hold that space of translation: to ensure that the work remains grounded in the community’s craft while also amplifying its resonance in a global contemporary art language," she adds.
‘Dhwani’ can be viewed at the Tridhara Durga Puja, Kolkata, till 2 October.
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