Artist Prabhakar Pachpute's charcoal drawings, sculptures and sound installation focus on health, housing and ecological concerns of mining cultures. Ornella D'Souza talks to the artist
"When our farm was taken over years ago for mining purposes, my brother was given a job as a miner and we received monetary compensation. This year, my cousins stand to lose their land... From three crop cycles a year, it has reduced to two, sometimes just one. Health problems related to the lungs, knees and back problems are increasing. Retired miners are going back to farming… it's a cycle," shares artist and sculptor Prabhakar Pachpute about his experiences of having lived near the mines in Chandrapur, Maharashtra. His third solo exhibition 'Te tolanche dhaga navhate/No, it wasn't the locust cloud' curated by Luca Cerizza and Zasha Colah, opens on April 11 at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA). It traces this impact of mining on humanity and ecology, a subject he digs deeper into with every exhibition to highlight conjoined issues of displacement, absence of government relief packages, droughts, etc.
NGMA's dome area forms his panoramic narrative to trace the shift in scenery – of farmlands converted to open-pit and underground mines, with trademark charcoal drawings and paper pulp sculptures.
Pachpute uses charcoal to express the soot-laden lives of miners. In his drawings, they appear crestfallen, walking in a row, their heads morphed into metaphors of their tools of toils (axes), manifestations of desires (house, satellite dish) and resignation to authority (power plugs), controlled by a site manager – a leitmotif in Pachpute's works. An occasional headlight becomes a beacon of hope for Pachpute, the object also giving him the idea to screen stopmotion films about mining, as a projection on the walls.
Pachpute's the only one from his family who got out of the mines with a scholarship to study sculpture at the Khairagarh University, Chhattisgarh. He remembers, "Everyday, around 3pm, we'd hear blasting at the mines. Utensils would topple, walls shook and developed cracks. We couldn't wear white. The crops always had a layer of dust."
But Pachpute was never interested to explore the subject till in 2011, while pursuing a postgraduate degree at MSU, Baroda, two mining accidents at Chile and Chandrapur made him notice the precarious lives of miners.Visiting faculty artist Tushar Joag helped him draw references on the subject from art and history and introduced him to the Colaba art space, Clark House. He's now a part of its artist-collective, Shunya.
But Te tolanche… conveys that land eaten by mining can be restored, the positivity stemming from research trips to view up-close mining and displaced communities in countries Pachpute's invited to exhibit. "For instance, before the 31st Sao Paolo Biennale (2014), I toured north Brazil and Minas Gerias to understand gold and iron mining and even met with the Landless Workers Movement. The working conditions are better – underground lifts, proper equipment and good diet for workers. I'm looking at such solutions in this exhibition… to hopefully materialise in India."
U-ra-mi-li, a film on Chandrapur's mines and poetry readings by poet-miner-farmer collective Sapta Ranga, will kick off the exhibition.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "Prabhakar")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}