Holding hands, offline

The Pandemic drew curtains on the performing space and took away livelihoods of the artistic community. But there were others who started support initiatives

The year 2020 had just begun. We had celebrated the turn of the decade with new resolve, revised wish lists and travel plans. Religious fairs and cultural festivals that had begun in the winter months across rural and urban India were still buzzing with a multitude of exuberant artistic expressions. Artists everywhere were busy. We all remember this like it was yesterday. However, the year that ensued had something different in store for us. Experiencing personal and collective losses, locked in our spaces, we saw the world shrink into a cocoon. For most of us, the screen of our devices became windows to the world outside. As we tried to plod through each day, we looked online longingly for a song, a story, a poem or a movement that would bring us some succour. The arts have always played this role in difficult times. Several performing artists at this point took to the digital space, re-imagining their art and ways of connecting with their audiences in this borderless world. Those left behind were artists who had no access to the digital world. It was at this time that many individual artists, cultural practitioners and organisations across the country, started initiatives in support fellow artists. Within a few days of the lockdown, Carnatic vocalist T M Krishna performed a solo online shut-in concert as a fundraiser for the COVID-19 Artists Fund that he set up for this cause. The performance brought in a seed amount of Rs. 9 lakhs. Krishna was soon joined by a team of four young artists - dancers Shweta Prachande and Varisha Narayanan, and musicians Vignesh Ishwar and Vikram Raghavan, who formed the core team for the fund-raising project. All of them, as artists also faced cancellations of their ongoing and future performances. The anxiety of uncertainty that started from a personal space slowly transformed into a larger understanding of how the pandemic was impacting artists everywhere. ‘We started in a small way reaching out to artists contacts in Tamilnadu and Karnataka. But soon, the project had taken on a life of its own,” says Varisha. With a focus mostly on marginalised art forms, the project soon went pan-India. “Transparency in our process led to more donations. At the same time, the number of people approaching us for support also increased,” adds Vikram, who has been responsible for fund disbursals. The team then organised two online festivals featuring recorded performances, as another mode of fundraising. ‘It was heartwarming to see the artists record their videos with whatever means they had. More than anything else, artists were yearning to perform,” affirms Vignesh. The Covid-19 Artists Fund has till date raised 1.05 crores from 1300 donors and has benefited 3128 artists across 250 art forms in 22 states and two Union Territories in India.