Kiran Dixit Thacker turned an entire floor of Birla Academy of Art and Culture into a mini Santiniketan. The slow rural life of the town — goats lazing around, Santhal villagers working on the paddy field, the lotus plant in the pond attracting dragonfly, the cat giving its body a good stretch or feasting on the fresh fish — were captured with immense detailing and precision in her sculptures made of steel, a medium she is most comfortable with.
“It’s very difficult to manipulate this metal for making face. I’m learning while I’m doing it. I like the flexibility of steel in comparison to bronze. Also, it’s not very expensive,” reasoned Dixit, who was trained under Ramkinkar Baij, one of the pioneers of modern Indian sculpture, and is probably the only living protégé of Baij alive.
The exhibition, titled ‘Glimpses of Santiniketan’, featuring 60 of her works, including watercolour paintings, and bronze and stone sculptures, was part of the five-day exhibition. Attracting and commanding attention was Dixit’s ‘Chai Chai’. Not the Hindi word for tea, but the Bengali word referring to a demand. With the 15-odd sculptures of men, women and children, almost in movement, marching ahead on foot or with their cycle in tow, chanting slogans and holding placards, she captured the inherent element of protest in the diaspora. “When I once took ‘Chai Chai’ to Delhi they refused to display it. I had to stay up all night and remove most of the graffiti to be able to showcase it. There’s just one left with the kid asking for toys,” pointed out Dixit as she cracked a popular joke of Bengalis starting a strike on the sixth day at work.
Dixit, whose trajectory in the world of art is very different from mainstream artists, started her journey as a sculptor and painter in 2000. She worked as a craft, design and technology teacher since 1979 in various secondary and middle schools in London. She quit her job, returned to India and joined Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan, after an extremely unkind past and the demise of her husband and daughter. A tete-a-tete with Dixit...
The starting point
I started with clay, like all of us, when we were students. When I taught in England, I used clay there as well. But I also started to use metal. I was retrained in England to do heavy metal. We were the first six women in England and Wales to be trained as heavy craft teachers. We were taught all kinds of machines. So we did forging, welding, casting, we collected aluminum tins and cast in sand… the things that are cheaper for the high-school kids. So the fear of working with metal was gone there. When I came here, I worked in clay and then moved to other mediums. I bought a little land, made myself a studio.
The process
When I see people doing single things, I sometimes wonder, weren’t we always taught about composition? I can’t think any other way but that way. For me, it has to have a theme. So, I paint or make what is around me. I see a langur, I go and make a langur. I love the shape, I photograph it, sit with it, and treat it. I see lovers in Santiniketan, then I could see the possibility of different kinds of situations. I am not a sort of great intellectual, I am only interested in the shape and the form of something. If I can get it to my satisfaction, which is never there, because I am not experienced enough, but if I can get somewhere near it, I am happy. That’s it. I am always thinking of making something.
Her mediums
I stopped making bronze structures after a bad experience with receiving payment. But if I did win a lottery tomorrow, couple of millions, I might again do bronze. It’s too expensive and it stops you from being experimental. With this, (steel) I can do anything. I have made several trees. I’ve made kathal (jackfruit), and then, another one is khajoor (dates) with a bird sitting on it. I’ve made birds as well. However, you will find a lot of bronze structures like my Munia and Babua, my beloved cats. So, my next exhibition will showcase a lot of bronze.
An artist, a feminist
This march used to happen in Santiniketan because they all had non-permanent jobs. They protested every Tuesday evening, demanding that their jobs be made permanent. I tried to capture it with ‘Chai Chai’. The very idea of protest attracts me. I was protesting in London all the time. I’m a very union person. I remember Margaret Thatcher was our Prime Minister when I was the school rep for the National Union of Teachers. We started Black and ethnic groups, supported women, did workshops for lesbians and all that. I am a feminist who believes that women should be given the same kind of choices that men have. And women in society should have the same status as men. There should be no disparity in their salaries. And they should have the right of getting maternity leave. I wanted Black and ethnic people in England to have the same kind of advantages that a White person has. I’ve left all politics behind. I’m in Santiniketan now and I do no socialising, play with my cats and do gardening.
If she wins a lottery...
I want to, this is my dream, if I win the lottery, I’m going to go to London and I am going to buy a land just around the corner. I’m going to have five goats and some murga murgis (chickens), and I’m going to train them to cuckoo at four in the morning, to disturb everybody’s sleep (laughs). There will also be a pond with fish and lotus. And a lot of cats.