Samagam 2025: How can art promote interconnectedness?
How can art promote interconnectedness? That was the theme of this year's Samagam (gathering) organised by CPPA to inform its work throughout the rest of the year. The urgency of the question was reinforced by the outbreak of renewed conflict between India and Pakistan.
The performing arts are presented to audiences, so one might think that to bridge divides the artist simply has to convey to the audience a message of unity, and that must be better than a message of hate.
But 20th-century 'agitprop'--derived from the Soviet Communist Party's Department of Agitation and Propaganda--is still agitprop, even where it is driven by the best of intentions. It treats the audience as empty vessels to be filled with the 'right' ideas.
In this context, the performance can not work as a transmission belt for ideology; rather, it becomes about the artist engaging with the audience in an interactive manner. And on that key point, interestingly, two figures interviewed during Samagam--coming from the very different disciplines of cinema and photography--were ad idem.
Dr. Marina Hassapopoulou, an assistant professor in the Department of Cinema Studies of New York University but originally from the divided island of Cyprus, has recently published a book on interactive cinema, challenging the notion of the passive spectator. Stressing that 'interactivity can be used both to empower and to manipulate', she pointed to collaborative documentaries, through which 'interactivity is changing the way we tell stories', allowing voices outside the mainstream to be heard.
She was involved in the development of an application called Visual Voices, promoting user-generated content and stories of peace advocacy. This embraced the idea that 'socially engaged art coming from communities affected by violent conflict and tackling conflict-related challenges' was relevant around the world.
One of the artists involved in this project was Jamal Penjweny, who lives and works in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Being immersed in Iraq and its conflicts, he said, he had been able to tell stories through his photography rather than reproduce the stereotypes of the 'war zone'.
But to tell the whole story he had to become an artist rather than just a journalist: everyone now has a camera in their hand, so just photographing individuals as passive participants was no longer enough--they had to be enabled to be actors. And while 'art alone can not make peace' it could nevertheless 'show the way to peace', for example by representing the long cultural patrimony of Iraq rather than just focusing on the negative recent history of war.
Aastha Mohapatra, a young Indian opera singer, encapsulated these insights nicely. Art, she said, can express the otherwise inexpressible. It can thus promote reflection and be a medium to bring people together.
Contributor: Dr. Joseph Robin Wilson
