‘Freedom and Awakening’ within the walls of a jail-turned-museum
The Hindu
The Kolkata Centre for Creativity arranged a camp with prominent and promising artists from all over India, who visited the then under-renovation Alipore Jail
Creativity flourishes within the walls of the historic Alipore jail where contemporary artists reflect on the ideas of ‘freedom and awakening’
When the West Bengal Government decided to turn the Alipore Jail into a museum, coinciding with India’s 75th year of Independence, it invited the Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC) to curate a show that celebrated the freedom struggle.
The KCC arranged a camp with prominent and promising artists from all over India, who visited the then under-renovation Alipore Jail, and what they created became the Freedom and Awakening exhibition. The second phase of the exhibition, also to go on for a year like the first, was inaugurated last weekend.
“Interpretation of freedom and awakening continues with paintings and installations by contemporary Bengali artists. We hope that these artworks continue to inspire all those who walk into Cell No. 5 of the Alipore jail-turned-museum and keep reminding us of the struggles and the fight for freedom from British rule,” said Richa Agarwal, chairperson of Kolkata Centre for Creativity
“Just as the struggle for Independence encompassed a spectrum of experiences, emotions, and challenges, this exhibition showcases a kaleidoscope of artistic expressions investigating individual freedom and collective awakening as a journey in progress,” she said.
The show presents artworks by artists such as Chhatrapati Dutta, Mithu Sen, Debasish Mukherjee, Smarak Roy, Chandra Bhattacharjee, Suman Dey, Arunima Choudhury and Debanjan Roy.
The only traditional sculpture in the exhibition, cast in bronze, is Debanjan Roy’s ‘Gandhi’ — an icon of the Indian freedom struggle and a theme Mr. Roy has been artistically exploring for decades. Of the two women artists in the show, in Mithu Sen’s artworks the idea of freedom — or the lack of it — revolves around a bleak picture of the present. She illustrates it with a dialogue between the unborn, the mother, and the motherland. Arunima Choudhury’s portrays life on the fringes — how joy and harmony persist in abundance at the unsung periphery.
The Opposition Congress demanded that the government open the Gandhi Vatika Museum, depicting Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy and freedom struggle, built at a cost of ₹85 crore in Jaipur’s Central Park last year, during the Congress-led regime in Rajasthan. The museum has not been opened to the public, reportedly because of the administration’s engagements with the State Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
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