In the last few years I have felt heartened, as an art critic, to see so many artist-led initiatives, both individual and collective, that are invested in crowd-funding to realise more complex artistic visions
A still from Marod, one of Jyotsna Siddharth’s
One of the biggest conundrums that confronts creative people, those desirous of making manifest an idea that has consumed their mind space, is whether to wait until things fall into place, until you can find the resources to realise a project, or whether to proceed anyway, absence of funds notwithstanding. Many of us, especially those not born with caste or class privilege rely on our ability to economise, to make do with whatever we are either handed or have managed to forage together while learning to swallow our understandable contempt and resentment for and towards those who are, in fact, given things on a silver platter without having to lift too many fingers. This predicament has moral implications for many artists and creative practitioners. Whenever I have been asked to speak to young art students or curators I always present them with this dilemma. What do you do when you have a fantastic vision and detailed plan for what you want to accomplish, but the only person eager to offer you luxurious funding, no strings attached, is a business person with multiple holdings, one of which involves making pellet guns that are used against Kashmiri dissenters, or weapons, like tear gas, used against Palestinians? Do you accept the money? Can you withstand knowing that in your desperation, you have made yourself complicit in “art washing”, morally corrupt business people’s method of profiting off the presumed nobility of the artistic endeavour in order to cleanse themselves off the guilt of extractivist undertakings?
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Usually I am informed that the entire system is corrupt and pitted against the individual who seeks, genuinely, to subvert it, so what’s the big deal in simply accepting the money, goes the argument. I’m not suggesting even for a second that I am myself not complicit. I am not positioning myself as occupying a moral high ground. However, I learned, from almost ten years of working within the art world both in India and internationally, that if we don’t engage actively in critiquing the system, it’ll continue to perpetuate itself and be the norm. One of the most convenient ways in which the status quo gets perpetuated is when we assume there is no other way, that the corruption is so endemic that we must adapt to it.
Earlier plays. Her upcoming work, Clay, is looking for funding
In the last few years I have felt heartened, as an art critic, to see so many artist-led initiatives, both individual and collective, that are invested in crowd-funding in order to realise more complex artistic visions. Given the pitiful lack of governmental support for artists in India, and the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of corporate funding that arose to fill that void, these initiatives are daring in how they seek the solidarity of like-minded people in order to arrive at a seed funding. Unlike well-funded organisations in the art world, most of these initiatives are keen to also compensate the people working with them adequately, because of which they tend to be faced with questions, like why do you need so much money? We have completely normalised paying people inadequately for their time and labour, trying to cut corners by invalidating their contributions. I know of a gallery owner who once told me that people should pay her to let them work at her gallery!
Two initiatives that I recently contributed to (and there is no cap on how little or how much you can donate) include Panther’s Paw Publication, a publishing house focussed on Dalit literature in English and translation, run by Yogesh Maitreya, and Jyotsna Siddharth’s crowd-funding appeal for a play they are devising with a bunch of collaborators, called Clay. Both rely on direct funding from individuals as against depending on grants, allowing anyone to become a stakeholder in their anti-caste activism and intellectual discourse. Maitreya has a very hands-on approach to publishing, and is a brilliant mind. I enjoy following him on Instagram because I love his poetry. He’s currently offering a bundle of seven books, all centred on anti-caste activism, for Rs 2,195, with free shipping. You can find out more on his Facebook and Instagram page. Meanwhile, Jyotsna Siddharth, an actor, queer activist, and intellectual for whom I similarly have the deepest admiration, has put up her appeal for funds on Milaap.org for Clay, which, they say, is perhaps one of the first few independent plays performed to centre anti-caste-queer narrative over a long drawn performance in Hindi and English. “The seed money will allow us to continue working with more rigour and clarity, bringing in new people with ideas and resources, to be able to put together the play. The effort towards this play, eventually, intends to bring out new perspectives, aesthetics and nuances to understand caste playing out mostly in urban, elite spaces. This play will contribute to the intersectional work with respect to caste and gender within theatre, entertainment and acting landscape in India and hopefully globally.”
If you, like me, are as invested in dismantling Brahmanical patriarchy and helping empower activists who are emotionally engaged in championing anti-caste narratives, do consider supporting these initiatives, and do alert me to others you may know of. While you won’t get tax relief for such donations, you will definitely be participating in the advancement of cultures of subversion and resistance, the most urgent need of the hour.
Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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