Indian residency offers life, colour, sounds and dust

Artist Brydee Rood recently took part in the Sowing Seeds artist residency project in Rasjasthan, India, supported by an Asia New Zealand Foundation arts grant. The Sowing Seeds project brings together artists from around the world to share ideas and methods while also bringing benefit to the village where they are based.

“The idea of implanting 15 international artists, all from different cultures and working in various mediums and with a range of professional experience into Gelawas – a remote rural village – sounded temptingly wild,” said Brydee Rood, when giving an explanation of why she wanted to take part in the Sowing Seeds residency.

“We trod into a vibrant melee of life, colour, sounds and dust – unlike anything I’ve known before,” Rood said. “Simply being in Gelawas was enough to get my thoughts sprouting.”

While in Gelawas, Rood came up with two projects. In the first, she worked directly with Ashraram Kumar – a local dancer/performer – to create a performance/live-installation piece.

“The idea to decorate a village cow and performance artist with rubbish bags, solar lights and locally gathered synthetic 'welcome necklaces' evolved from the moment I arrived in India. 

“I came across many a sacred cow, feeding from random plastic-filled roadside rubbish piles in Jaipur, Jodhpur and Pushkar.

“I was also inspired by the many wonderful evenings of dancing that were held in Gelawas village and at camp – the vitality of the young woman was inspirational and in equal measures, the talent shown by male performers was enough to spark an insistent idea that I had to find a way to involve local dance in my project.

“Kumar’s conjuring spirited movements were the essence of my idea.”

In Spirited Waste, Kumar and the cow wore solar panel necklaces, which powered a collection of attached lights. After several attempts that didn’t quite work, Rood said the project “miraculously came to life, amidst the throng of villagers, animals and dust clouds”.

The second of Rood’s Gelawas projects fell into her lap after American artist Ray King initiated a village clean-up.  “I facilitated the construction of 160 reusable rubbish bags – sewn from old sari scraps by local tailor Mafi Devi – to be used to collect as much plastic rubbish as possible from around the village in an afternoon.

“There were reusable bags for every child involved in the clean-up, and 377 bags of plastic waste were removed from Gelawas.

“After the action all the bags were gathered, hand-washed and left for the village in a farewell installation stretching above a local lane way.”

Rood admitted that there were challenges during her time in the village – but said these helped her to a new realisation as an artist.

“I became more accepting of the processes involved with the creation of an idea – that something new could unfold through the action of trying to make something happen.

“Sometimes the challenge was about simple things, like finding the right tape, and sometimes more complex things like locating a friendly cow at sunset who doesn't mind wearing a solar powered "waste" coat!

“These challenges were what fed the project – the process became the outcome. Just being there and having these interventions with the local people, animals and space was in itself a magical experience.”

Images:
1. Spirited Waste - Asharam Kumar and Brydee Rood during the Spirited Waste performance.
2. Gelawas children with their recycled-sari bags.
3 and 4. For a World Without Waste - the recycled-sari bags left for the village