Shyamhari Chakra
There is an urgent need to rethink and redesign the policies and programmes of India’s art centres and museums to make them connect to the people. Moreover, collaboration among these institutions has been the need of the hour to achieve an artist-friendly and people-friendly art environment across the country.
This was the unanimous view of the participants in the just concluded 238th edition of the monthly ‘Meet-the-Artist’ series hosted by Bhubaneswar-based Jatin Das Centre of Art (JDCA) that was moderated by actress and social activist Nandita Das.
JDCA has been founded by Nandita’s father and New Delhi based eminent artist Jatin Das who hails from Odisha.
‘Meet the Artist’ series has been happening at JDCA on every second Saturday of the month in Bhubaneswar since 19 years. It invites an expert or a scholar from the field of visual art or performing arts to interact with the assembly members that constitutes eminent people from various fields of knowledge.
The meet was hosted online today after a gap of five months – due to the ongoing pandemic – with noted sculptor Adwaita Charan Gadanayak, Director-General of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in New Delhi, to deliberate on “The Role of Art Centres in India”.
Sharing his experiences as an artist and art administrator, Gadanayak lamented that India’s premiere art and cultural institutions work in isolation. He further observed that there has been an ever growing gap between the indigenous artists dwelling across villages and the contemporary artists staying in urban centres. The system of art education and art administration in India must be revamped to bridge the gap, he suggested.
The NGMA Director General informed that the Government is keen to set up a Regional Centre of NGMA in the North East.
With its headquarters in the national capital, NGMA has set up its Regional Centres in Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Among others, former Director General of Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) Lalit Mansingh, Sam Pitroda, known as the Father of India’s Computer and IT Revolution and advisor to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in bringing computerisation and Madan Lal, who heads a museum in Varanasi participated in the deliberations that was streamed live through social media.
Apart from participating in the deliberations, JDCA founder-chairperson Jatin Das, his son and designer Siddharth Das, vice chairperson of JDCA and moderator Nandita Das discussed the vision of JDCA as an art centre.
