Collaborating on mall installations of Cholamandal artist Jacob
Jan 24th 2020
After our enriching and interesting experience of doing our annual exhibition at the Cholamandal Artists' Village earlier in the month, there was an interesting request from Jacob Jebaraj, the Cholamandal artist. He was participating in the Madras Art Guild's Connecting Communities Through Art exhibition at VR Mall, with three installations that used discarded material for the most part.
His installations were ready, and would we care to add fresh material and bring in the essence of Ikebana into these pieces? Our member Sathya G, who resides at Cholamandal, was the coordinator for this whole project.
VR Mall is a busy mall in the Anna Nagar side of town, and they had given us permission to work on these installations only after 830 pm! So it was that Sathya, Mrs Jacob and Ambika set off from the ECR side at 630pm and reached the venue after a maddeningly slow and tortuous ride at 845 in the evening.
They were armed with long-lasting flowers like Strelitzia and Ginger Lily, and water tubes as also cotton and cellophane paper to make sure the flowers get a drink of water.
Here is another view, and the title board that was put up. Jacob aimed to bring an aesthetic appreciation of the environment and what we discard, combining Ikebana and the Chinese form Suiseki.
Jacob titled this as "Openness"
After our enriching and interesting experience of doing our annual exhibition at the Cholamandal Artists' Village earlier in the month, there was an interesting request from Jacob Jebaraj, the Cholamandal artist. He was participating in the Madras Art Guild's Connecting Communities Through Art exhibition at VR Mall, with three installations that used discarded material for the most part.
His installations were ready, and would we care to add fresh material and bring in the essence of Ikebana into these pieces? Our member Sathya G, who resides at Cholamandal, was the coordinator for this whole project.VR Mall is a busy mall in the Anna Nagar side of town, and they had given us permission to work on these installations only after 830 pm! So it was that Sathya, Mrs Jacob and Ambika set off from the ECR side at 630pm and reached the venue after a maddeningly slow and tortuous ride at 845 in the evening.
They were armed with long-lasting flowers like Strelitzia and Ginger Lily, and water tubes as also cotton and cellophane paper to make sure the flowers get a drink of water.
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| This was the first one we worked on. Jacob had created a driftwood tree, filled with various discarded material. Ambika and Sathya used only the Strelitzia to add drama and colour to the composition, with leaves lower down, and this is how it looked when they were done. This installation was placed just at the lift entrance in the ground floor lobby |
It was close to 10 by the time we finished this piece and so the group trooped up for a quick dinner, before starting on the next piece.
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| For this second installation, Jacob had created flowers from plastic bottles, and this splendid tree did not need any more colour. So, with a bunch of palm, crotons and aralea, Ambika and Sathya gave the tree some greenery, making it feel more "alive". |
Jacob titled this as "Openness"
It was close to midnight when they moved to the last installation, which was a dramatic spreading piece.
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| Various discarded human-created elements - from slippers, to broken bottles to thrown away toys - formed colourful accents on the floor, while dramatic lines supported what looked like the beach weeds, as they moved upwards and outwards. The Ikebana team used ginger torch lily to complement the look and feel of this composition, as also Dracaena, whose colour merged well with the piece. |
It was a interesting experiment and experience for Ambika and Sathya, and we hope the start of more collaborations across the arts.
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