KOCHI: What looks like two gigantic cloth lines are seen diagonally cutting across the length of Durbar Hall grounds. In the centre of the ground is a massive collection of plastic bottles, with several men busy assembling the bottles, one over the other , making a plastic circle of sorts. For those uninitiated, Durbar Hall grounds is now the stage for a unique visual arts installation, Across the Air held as part of the International Tourism Day celebrations. The visual arts installation is a joint venture of visual artists, Anna-Lea Kopperi from Finland and Abhilash Unni from India. Taking several everyday objects like cloth bags and plastic bottles, the exhibition aims to look at some of the contemporary issues of human life and environment. Kopperi’s installation consists of hundreds of decomposing white tissue bags that hang and fly on a hundred meter long line tied to palm trees. “The white bags have the form of an undershirt referring to the human body and human being. It symbolises that human beings in spite of their cultural, social and other differences are essentially the same across the world. We have the same needs. Even the rich and the poor, people across all countries essentially have same needs,” says Kopperi. Abhilash Unni on the other hand is making two round structures with hundreds of water bottles. On the bottom of each bottle is attached a photograph of a person of different nationality. The visitor may enter the round structure of bottles and look at all the photographs. Threads come out of every water bottle, which are coiled together and connect with another one. “It tries to look at the pressure and problems faced by people across the world. It also brings out the inequalities and different issues we face,” says Abhilash. Besides the focus on environment, the exhibition is also an attempt to encourage art and artists. “Ours is a society where visual illiteracy is quite high. People do not frequent art exhibitions or painting exhibitions. This in turn affects the artist’s survival too. This exhibition is an attempt to evoke interest among the people for visual arts. Seeing us make these installations, many people have started coming in and inquiring about it,” says Abhilash Unni.Kopperi on the other hand feels this medium is unique because of its closeness to reality. “For one of my exhibitions on the Baltic sea, I began by painting the sea. But then I felt it was removed from reality. I thought why not bring the ocean itself with me. SO in a period of 2 years between 1996-97, I collected 98 samples of sea water from different shores and kept it for exhibition,” she says.All her exhibitions have been site-specific. “I am very sensitive to space. In Finland we have plenty of forests and I have lived very close to them since childhood. This perhaps brought in me a sensitivity towards space and environment,” she says.The exhibition does not stop with the show casing of the installations. “On the last day, I will be sitting on this table and giving away herbal plants to people. When I give away the plants, I will be asking them several questions like, ‘What will you name the plants?’, ‘Where will you grow them’ etc. The performance is in one sense a parody on the bureaucratic systems that puts people through various questions. But on the other hand, it is meant to make people think about the act of growing a plant, about bringing up a new life. It's meant to be an interactive fun exercise,” she says. The exhibition will be on till September 29. The artists will be present to interact with people who come visiting.
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