Art in A Time Of Conflict | Journeyman Pictures

Transcript

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Psychology says that there are three things.

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There is long-term memory, short-term memory and core memory.

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My core memory has... I have developed as a person in conflict.

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In 2010... it was very shocking when I was in high school.

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We had just stepped out of school one day.

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And we heard gunshots and tear-gas shelling around us.

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I was stuck. I just froze, right in the middle of the road.

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And I couldn't program all that was happening.

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I was just pushed inside a photostat shop.

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We were not allowed to carry cellphones back then.

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All I could hear were gunshots and tear-gas shelling.

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I used to paint landscapes and portraits.

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But I don't know what came over me that day. I don't know what happened.

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I started painting conflict.

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What kind of rivers are these that flow with blood?

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What sort of bazaars are these that billow with smoke?

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What are these loud cries?

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Whose laments are these that fill the streets?

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What are these funeral processions that pass by?

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Whose young have been killed?

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Who is this that keeps wailing?

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Whose young have been killed?

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Whose motherhoods have been stolen?

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Whose young are these that flood the streets?

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What kind of rivers are these that flow with blood?

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What sort of bazaars are these that billow with smoke?

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Revolution is the need of the hour. There is no other way.

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It's necessary for the time we live in.

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And it's natural to feel this way when you grow up in this environment.

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You feel trapped by the chains of subjugation.

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I see it as one's duty.

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When you face these situations, you feel compelled to act.

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You feel compelled to write.

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This is called 'A Monster in Distress'.

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And this is called 'A Sufi in Distress'.

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I was born in Kashmir.

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My father was working in Iran at the time.

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So, I spent the first five years of my life in Iran.

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And then my father decided that he wanted to come back.

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It was a curfewed day, the very first day. It was a rainy day.

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And there were shoot-at-sight orders in place at that time.

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This army guy came into the bus and he was frisking.

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And my sister told my mother, "Don't worry."

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"If you're scared of him, I'll beat him up."

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And the army guy gave a stern look. "Sit your child down!"

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[Yeah... early works.]

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This was the place I had to grow up in.

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It's very clearly evident that

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I was also constantly looking at the visual imagery

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in terms of the presence of armed forces.

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I got an appointment in an art college, and I started teaching.

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For 35 years.

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And one day, in '89, when the militancy and turmoil started

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the whole setup got gutted down in fire.

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I lost almost all my paintings.

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And I had to re-establish myself.

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Then, I started seriously painting.

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And I have been painting conflict for the past... so many years.

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2016 was another very bad phase that we experienced.

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It was after the death of a militant known as Burhan Wani.

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At that time, the younger generation,

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especially teenagers, 9-year-olds and 10-year-olds.

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Very small children were on the streets pelting stones.

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And then just to curb these children...

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Well, the authorities were initially using tear-gas

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and now they started using pellet guns.

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One day, I went to the hospital and I saw...

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the full hospital filled with all these young boys and girls with pellet injuries.

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And some children... they had lost their eyesight.

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I did these digital works as a protest.

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That's what artists can do.

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I witness and record the history. That's all.

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One day, I was surfing Facebook

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and I got a message from a person who worked for a newspaper that

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there is a woman from Australia and she wants to work with you.

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And she approached me through my Facebook profile

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and she was like, "I have seen your work. You work on conflict."

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"I'm planning to come to India and meet many Kashmiri artists."

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"Would you like to join us in a core group called 'A Path with Art'?"

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She told us to make whatever we wanted. "Whatever comes to your mind."

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7 out of 10 artists ended up creating art on Kashmir and violation.

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There was no talk of conflict, yet it cropped up in the art.

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Like images of burning chinar trees and barbed wires.

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So, it made us realise that it is in our head.

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Sometimes when we don't speak about certain things, but they are in our head

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they find expression through art.

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I wasn't even born when the Kunan Poshpora mass rape occurred.

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But when I read about it, it brought tears to my eyes.

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Because those testimonies were horrifying, they were traumatising.

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And me being a woman, I felt helpless.

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Because justice was denied to them. Over 80 women were raped.

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[This is Tufail Mattoo.]

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I have this memory from my childhood.

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I was playing with my sister in the backyard.

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What happened... we heard a really big bang.

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And she fell down.

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My mother took me in her arms and we went inside.

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And she continuously screamed at us. She was shouting at us.

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"Put your head down!"

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Because we could hear continuous rounds of gunshots.

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And then my grandfather came. He was panting.

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He came rushing inside the house and said, "The encounter has started."

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"The situation is bad."

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And that was the time my sister was to return from her tuition class.

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My mother was just scared to death that something might happen to her daughter.

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I still have that memory embedded in my heart.

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And I was 7 or 6 years old.

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So, this is how I have grown up in the conflict.

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And when people accuse me of being a traitor, an anti-national...

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I insist that I'm not a traitor.

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This is what I've seen. I want you to know.

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I recall a poem by my grandfather which went

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'I have risen from suffering holding a pen drenched with my being,

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and I march towards death with the spirit of rebellion.'

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My grandfather passed away when I was two years old.

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But his fragrance lingered.

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The fragrance of his poetry... it filled our home.

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And it became a part of who I am.

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And here is my grandfather's grave.

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I feel that he's always watching over me.

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If I'm ever stuck while writing, I read a prayer in his name.

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And the words begin to flow.

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This is where we grew up.

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So all these things, the pond, the trees...

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They're like our friends. We live as one.

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I remember this one time when the situation got really bad.

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But somehow this place remained unaffected.

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So we would all come and sit around here.

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We would chit-chat. We would share poetry too.

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This has been the birthplace of scholars and saints.

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And even now you can feel their presence in the breeze.

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I am currently working on a portrait of Parveena Ahanger.

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She is called the 'Iron Lady of Kashmir'

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and has been given numerous awards for her human rights efforts.

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She heads the Association of the Parents of Disappeared Persons.

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The idea was to try and meet these different women

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who are mothers or wives of individuals who were killed,

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who were murdered, or hanged, or were disappeared.

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But being some sort of an icon herself does not resolve her own crisis.

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This is a big concern.

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It's a pressing issue in Kashmir.

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May this atrocity never happen to anyone else.

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If declared dead, at least we would get to see the body.

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And if there is a dead body, there's some compensation.

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We've searched all jails... searched everywhere.

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Whom do we go to? Even the courts aren't delivering justice.

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A couple of years ago,

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I went to Pratap Park and did an in-solidarity performance.

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She would tell me that I looked like her son who was disappeared.

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So I took an image, a photograph of her disappeared son that she uses everywhere.

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And right next to it, I put my own portrait.

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I asked her to strip the paper on top of the image slowly,

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and it revealed these two photographs.

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And then immediately after that she made a statement,

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she was holding that placard, and she was like

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'This is my son who has disappeared, and this is my son who is still here.'

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At that time, I hadn't thought about how this would make her feel.

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This act of keeping my photo alongside her son Javed's, in front of so many people.

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I don't know why, but at that time, it felt necessary to do this.

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I wanted to tell everyone out there

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that this is our shared pain.

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That her pain isn't separate from ours, nor is her fight for justice.

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Somewhere, amidst all this, is a bond.

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There is an empathy towards that pain.

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It's a shared suffering.

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There are about 8000 to 10,000 families whose family members have been taken away.

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They don't know where their relatives are, whether they're dead or alive.

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I could have met this fate too. I still could.

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I was born and brought up in this same downtown area.

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And well, it was really amazing.

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The place was calm and close to the river Jhelum.

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It was really wonderful to be in those small and narrow lanes.

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And all those old houses.

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We have a lot of good memories of our childhood.

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We used to really enjoy, and go around freely.

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Our children haven't really seen much

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because they have been brought up in this environment of conflict.

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Living on the main road, we have witnessed some very bad incidents.

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Like we have even seen

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the death of a few militants

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just outside our home.

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So, that is the difference.

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Because we really haven't seen much normalcy

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during this period.

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The birds, the silence, people walking by...

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They share smiles, they're witnessing life...

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There is this picture to Kashmir as well.

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'Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast'

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'Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast'

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It means, "If there is a paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here."

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I do not think that this line suits Kashmir anymore.

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There is so much beauty here.

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But it's the most dangerous place because it's the most militarized zone.

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Over half-a-million troops are in Kashmir.

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It is a paradise that has been set ablaze.

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When you paint burning chinar leaves

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and the smoke, it gives a very beautiful effect.

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Especially in water colours.

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Wherever you look, every inch is a subject for an artist.

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So, I don't paint anything beyond this.

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Whether it's realistic or abstract,

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this is my inspiration.

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As we grew older, motorbikes became a part of our life.

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And we would ride without a destination in mind.

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We'd call one place 'Mountain Top', another place 'Summit'.

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We simply named places as we saw fit.

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Even now, I don't know the actual names of places in Kashmir.

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We call this place 'Hideout'.

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When someone calls and says, "Come to Hideout," we all land up here.

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During the summers, this place would turn completely green.

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You felt like you were in paradise.

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You'd find berries over there.

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And when we were young, my friend and I would hang around eating those berries.

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See those bushes? They used to stretch across the entire garden.

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We spent all our time here.

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It was great fun.

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Over there's a temple...

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Do you know what's special here?

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You see a temple over there, right?

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Over there's a mosque, and over there's a gurdwara.

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So, when you look from here, everyone's together.

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But the army sits on top of all of us.

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Sometimes, I'm overcome by frustration... conflict this, conflict that.

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And in this state of mind, I head to college only to see stone pelting there...

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I'm like, enough. I can't take it anymore.

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So, I escape to a jungle like this for some respite.

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While coming here, we crossed the house of shahid (martyr) Yawar.

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There used to be a Border Security Force (BSF) camp right across his house.

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So that man who stayed in that house? One time, his sister came to visit.

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And there was an attempt to rape her.

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So, he went to her rescue.

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He was able to save her, but he got shot in the process.

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It was his house that we crossed on the way here.

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See, I bring this up because...

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Whenever you leave your house, you come across this stuff.

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This is Tufail Mattoo's house. That is another victim's house.

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So, naturally, all of this affects you.

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People ask me, "Why do you say these things? Why do you write these things?"

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Truth be told, I am a peace loving person.

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But I can't escape my reality. I can't run away from it.

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I mean, sure, I can sit aside for a while and think. Maybe even write something.

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But how long can I avoid the truth?

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I mean, I travel through these very alleys everyday.

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That's why I'm not able to contain this feeling.

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It gushes out of me.

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I'm going to set up art camps. This is the beginning.

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This is the first session that I'm going to do with the kids.

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I hope it turns out good.

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How does it make you feel when you come across people your age?

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Those whom you see on Facebook.

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Non-locals, or your own cousins who live in the Gulf or other countries

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or even Delhi or Jammu.

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How does it make you feel?

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Alright, just paint it. Don't tell me - just paint it down.

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I feel a bit tired.

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I don't really know why...

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Emotionally, it's quite a lot of mixed feelings.

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Thinking about it, it somehow does not resolve her own crisis that she is in.

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And at the same time, I'm constantly thinking about

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what it means for me to make an artwork out of it.

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Art... it somehow heals you.

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When there are no boundaries, when there are no limits

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they will paint what's in their minds.

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I do not really have any expectations that

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it's going to revolutionalize and change everything.

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But I also really believe that these kind of attempts

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not just by me, but by a lot of different artists

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who are trying to deal with a lot of uncomfortable questions,

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it raises and starts some sort of conversation

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that hopefully evolves into something positive

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not just for people who are suffering directly,

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but for everyone else here in Kashmir.

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Yeah, there is hope too.

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But let us see when.

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We have been waiting for better times to come.

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So, that's why I always paint one painting on hope.

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So when it comes, let us see.

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Because we have been waiting for the past 27 years.

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So, I keep on painting.

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I've written a poem, Raqs-e-Inquilab. The Dance of Revolution.

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It's a popular one.

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And it begins like this:

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Rise oh lovers, for now the stars are awake

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Hopes and desires are alive, even the defeated feel renewed

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The taverns are open, serving cups of truth

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And everyone is in an intoxicated mood

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So then why is this self-hatred strung around you?

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Why are you unable to walk the path?

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Who has tricked you so?

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Why is your heart filled with despair?

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Why do you run away from the beat of your heart?

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You who have crossed a thousand seas, why worry about a storm?

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You who are courage personified, why does your heart betray fear?

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Once the mad-in-love Mansur, now you stand timid in front of the world

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How could you have forgotten your true self and lead such a defeated life?

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Why do you gulp down cups of hatred in Satan's lair?

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Abandon this hate, and wake up. Feel something!

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Feel, if not for yourself, at least for the sake of the great Ahmed

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Come, listen to the voices arising from the mosque

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Come, see the wounds of your heart take flight

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Come, see who will be the true heir to Khyber

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All those mothers who lost their sons will soon find their heirs too

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The promised day is near, there is yet a ray of hope

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Look at the light scattering behind the mountains

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Shackles shall break, and the sun will rise again

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It will rise, bearing the flag of truth

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Our cries will take flight, such is the power of our longing

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And these yearning voices will echo in every home of our land

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One day, the Dal will sing of our honour

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The Jhelum will speak of its depths

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One day, the birds will sing to the mountains

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The fragrance of truth will pervade as the cuckoo sings the songs of justice

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We shall then ask the flowing streams, 'What is the meaning of freedom?'

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Rushing past, their ripples shall reply, "La illaha illallah."

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Film: Art in A Time Of Conflict

http://www.journeyman.tv/film/7640

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