An exhibition on Chennai’s popular culture by the Arts Management students (2013-2014) of Dakshinachitra.

Chennai has this endearing quality of revealing itself at its own pace. Layer by layer you unfold the many surprises this city has in store for you. Chennai tells you to slow down, take your time and fall in love, not for a moment or two but for a lifetime.

Idhu Chennai Da! is our dedication to the love we all have for the city, it’s many sights, tastes and sounds. This exhibition is the coming together of ideas and influences that define what it is to be a Chennaite to the nation and to the world.

Cinema, religion, music, politics and other aspects of social life have played major roles in the life of Chennai, shaping the cultural and emotional memory of the city and its people.

PREFACE

An exhibition on Chennai’s popular culture by the Arts Management students (2013-2014) of Dakshinachitra.

December 15, 2013 – January 18, 2014

DakshinaChitra, East Coast Road,Muttukadu, Chinglepet District.

It was in our classroom at DakshinaChitra where the six of us —students of the Arts Management Programme (2013-14) — decided to take up the idea of exploring the popular culture of Chennai for an exhibition.

‘Why the ‘popular’?’ you may ask. It is all around us, for us to touch, see, feel, hear and even eat or wear, whether we have a choice in the matter or not. Is it then a subject that merits a determined curatorial exercise? Could the word ‘popular’, one that seems frivolous at the outset, be taken seriously? We wanted to investigate.

Why limit the study to Chennai? It was this city that had brought all six of us and our urge to learn, under one common platform.

The obvious starting point for us to define popular culture was to look at, as John Storey puts it, ‘culture which is widely favoured or well liked by many people’. But the attempt to delve beyond the definition threw up many more meanings of the word popular. Is it driven by production or consumption? Is it the same as mass culture or consumer culture? Is it what you and I like? Or should we go by what is listed out in the tourist guides of Chennai city?

Each new take on popular culture only served to take the discussion deeper into uncharted territories which did not make the task at hand any easier. How do we give form to concepts and ideas that we ourselves could not concur on? What we did agree upon was to look at the ‘context in understanding the meaning of something’. This exercise threw up narratives that gave us

reason to pause and question our own case-hardened notions of the popular. We realized, the dynamic quality of popular culture cannot be encapsulated within a single meaning. Idhu Chennai Da! deserved to capture the vibrant, ever-evolving essence of Chennai.

Our interactions with academics such as Sadanand Menon, Ashrafi Bhagat, MD Muthukumaraswamy, AR Venkatachalapathy, contemporary artists such as N Ramachandran and M Natesh and curators such as Ashvin Rajagopalan and Sharon Apparao gave us the confidence to think out of the box and visualise ideas on the popular culture of Chennai through new eyes.

Our concepts and ideas eventually took shape under the rigorous routine set up for us by contemporary artist B.O. Sailesh. We cannot thank him enough for patiently staying by our side as we navigated each bend and curve.

If it hadn’t been for our ‘Iron Lady’, Deborah Thiagarajan’s persistence on pushing us to think bigger and deliver much more than what had we imagined, we would not have seen Idhu Chennai Da! come alive. We are also thankful to Padma Anantram, our course co-ordinator, for all her support and inputs all along.

Last but definitely not the least, if not for our generous sponsors, this exhibition wouldn’t have come together.

So a huge thanks goes out to our title sponsor — Pudhu Yugam, and our associate sponsors — GRT Hotels & Resorts, Classmate and Madras Crafts Foundation.

To its many surprises, Its sights, tastes and sounds,Its cinema, religion, music,

politics and social life.

INTRODUCTIONA dedication to Contemporary Chennai.

The Chennai street wall turned into our canvas, a space where the public meets the private, where anonymity fights for visibility and where propaganda meets art.

This public wall carries many a narrative – from cinema posters to political graffiti to flyers celebrating personal achievements, even those commemorating deaths. Let‟s not forget the urban legend that is the ‘P. James Magic Show’; P. James plastered the city walls of Chennai for 14 years with his ingenious advertising. This wall is a myriad collection of histories that don‟t just talk but shout out loud to one and all.

Our exhibit urged the audience to take some time to peel off the many layers to read the inter-twined stories that delve into the popular pulse of Chennai.

STORY OF A STREET WALLThe Aesthetics of Chaos

Walk the streets of Chennai and the fervour of religiosity is hard to miss. The many small temples that dot the streets of the city are an integral aspect of this belief.

Each roadside temple has a history that is unique to it. Many of these have been put up by taxi and auto drivers and cycle rickshawallahs of the city. Deities abound but the favourites remain the Amman (Mother Goddess) or Pillayar (Ganesh).

Our exhibit recreated the temple for Mariamman, the goddess who is believed to be the guardian angel of the common man. Our Amman Temple stood proud, very close to the auto-stand, just as you would see, on the streets of Chennai.

THE MARIAMMAN TEMPLEA small temple, BUT very powerful

A picture speaks a thousand words and Chennai, a city infused with diverse religions, wears its faith on its sleeve. Be it the public spaces or private sanctums, the quiet corners or the community crossroads, calendar art occupies an integral space in the visual culture of Chennai.

Travel through time with our calendar art; from the early 1900’s lithographic prints of Raja Ravi Varma, through the mid 90’s into the technologically enhanced, glossy printed images, to the colourful, holographic pieces - our exhibit had it all!

This Exhibit sought to give the audience a peek into the ever-changing aesthetics of religious calendar art in Chennai, bringing forth its diverse expressions.

OF GODS AND POPULAR IMAGES

A Journey of Religion in Chennai through Calendar Art

An array of Golu-Dolls is quite simply a replica of the society we are part of. Chennai, where the swish of the metro mingles with the traditional village life, has its chromosomes handed-down to the Golu art as well.

An amalgam of the conventional deity figures, the late human deities, the maverick pop-culture figures, the real replicas of frozen moments of social life – there is nothing that cannot be accommodated in these dolls. ‘Ganesha’ has become the dearie of the art; Golu Ganesha takes many forms, a chess grand-master, a singer or a techie with a laptop.

With the Rasagolu, Chennai’s evolving urban landscape took shape in clay in a multitude of moods and hues.

RASAGOLUGolu-dolls go Pop

The grandeur of luminosity starts and ends with the Sun and the Moon for most cities. But for Chennai, the splendour extends to the streets where its brainchild, the ‘light art’ becomes the cynosure of the eyes all night long.

From birthday parties, to marriages, cut-outs of political leaders to grand temple Tiruvizhaas (temple festivals), serial light illuminations are still trendy.

A scaled down version of these grand light art installations came to Idhu Chennai Da! as a miscellanea of popular imagery. Our audience could take in this selection of energies – the spiritual (Deities), the sportive (Cricketers) and the ocular (Filmstars) and revel in a potpourri of passions defining the everyday life of Chennai.

SCINTILLATIONSChennai’s own Light Art

The fan phenomenon is unique to South India, especially Chennai. A lot of glamour surrounds the image of a film star. For a couple of hours people enjoy losing themselves in a fantasy beyond their wildest dreams. Be it milk libations (paal abhishekam) on the opening day of a Rajnikanth movie, or fan club posters for Ajith and Vijay, the Chennai fan remains loyal to its hero through thick and thin or hits and flops!

Building temples for their favourite actors is another feather in the Chennai fan’s cap that shows the ultimate form of devotion to their celluloid hero.

The Kushboo Temple that we created elevates the actor from being a mere human being to the status of a demi-goddess. She has been a source of inspiration and awe for many and the first actress in the South to have a temple dedicated to her.

KUSHBOO TEMPLEOf fans and hero worship

In the cinematically charged landscape of Chennai, the role of the celluloid can be best described as a sumptuous dialogue between the spectator and the medium, the fans and their idols. The icon of the cut-out, a permanent fixture on the sands of the Marina Beach, is perhaps its most popular manifestation.

Our ‘Firsht-Class’ Beach Studio gave the audience a glimpse into the evolving art of the cut-out — from meticulously hand-painted extravaganzas to cheaply mass-produced, photographic print on vinyl. While the art might have evolved, what hasn’t changed is the audience’s need to engage with the celebrity, to give in to their fascination for their celluloid idols.

Our ‘Beach Studio’ encouraged the audience to partake of all that is bold and beautiful about Tamil cinema, giving the fan, a chance to hug, hold, pose and smile with their favourite Tamil star. Their images travelled from the cinema to the streets to this slice of life recreated at Idhu Chennai Da!

‘FIRSHT-CLASS’ BEACH STUDIO

Get clicked with your favourite Tamil Star

Cinema is integral to Chennai’s landscape and one of the ways it permeates the social fabric is through language and text. Films and thereby their actors have ingrained themselves in the city’s popular consciousness by the creative use of dialogues in the cinematic idiom.

Memorable monologues of yesteryears have given way to the ‘punch dialogue’; they continue to be strong contributors to the success of a film, or that of a hero. Actor Rajnikanth is perhaps the most easily identifiable player in this idiom. Who can forget, “Naan Oru Tharava Sonna, Noor Tharava Sonna Mathiri”? Loosely translated it means, ‘If I say it once, it is like having said it a hundred times’.

Through our exhibit, we set out to tickle the audience’s memory and urged them to share that memorable line that holds a special place in their hearts. Our audience was most happy to come forth and ink out their favourite punch-dialogues at Idhu Chennai Da!

KONJAM NADINGA BOSS!Your dialogue, My dialogue, Our dialogue

The language of Chennai is like the city itself. It opens its arms to the world and embraces one and all as its own. The colloquial tamizh gets a peculiar twist when it is spoken in Chennai, which has borrowed words from English, Telugu, Hindi and Urdu.

Chennai Tamizh aka Madras Bashai is so uniquely Chennai that it has wound its way into cinema, drawing from and giving back the popular idiom. Now it grows and thrives as the language of a regular Chennaiite. Our exhibit looked at some of the lingos that you might hear or use in Chennai.

‘Konjam Pesunga Boss!’Original photograph by Thiagarajan (Thiagu Clicks)

VAANGA PESALAAMAn exhibit showcasing Chennai Tamizh

Call it the music of the people or the melody of the masses, the Gaana is a gritty rap genre that thrives in the bylanes of Chennai. The story goes that an Englishman, who was passing by the Marina Beach, heard the fishermen humming tunes while they mended the nets. He was so taken in by their music that he invited these fisher-folk to perform at his parties. This marked the birth of Gaana music.

These tunes were carried over by the later generations of the fishermen turned “rikshawkaranga” (rikshaw-drivers) who sang about the toils of everyday life, about love and heart break. Gaana got its ‘Big Break’ when it was introduced into mainstream cinema, as the tune of the common man. Even though ‘Filmi Gaana’ was only a heavily filtered version of the original Gaana music, the mélange of Chennai Tamil, catchy beats and simple melodies had everyone singing along.

There was only one way to showcase this music, through a live experience. On the day of the inauguration, we decided to give our audience a taste of Gaana Music, its journey through time, with a bit of a surprise in the end.

Gaana Music PerformanceChennai’s original ‘Sound of Music’

The ‘Auto’ has been an eminent icon of Chennai for decades now. Good, bad, ugly; this common man’s daily commute has always been in the limelight. The ‘Chennai’ Auto kaaran have always been in the line of fire for charging outrageous fares and driving on ‘video game’ mode in peak traffic. All said and done, we love to hate the Chennai Auto!

At Idhu Chennai Da!, we created an auto stand with the auto drivers; we can’t live with or without. The beautifully painted blue auto is a creation of artist N Ramachandran, while the other one has been taken off the streets of Chennai.

How best to partake of the auto experience than to hop into the one, click a photo and share some memories of your favourite rides because nothing better than the auto to say “Idhu Chennai Da!”.

THE CHENNAI AUTOThe quintessential Chennai ride

This exhibit was a contemplation of the fading and receding ways, along with a self-reflection of life as it currently is. It looked at Chennai, through the photographs of then and now, moving between the niche past to the popular today. With the camera shedding its bulk and making space for more and more photographs, we asked, is ‘getting clicked’ losing the meaning and significance along the way…

Exposed and Outwards was a reflection of life in the process of becoming crowded and externalized as is literally seen in the public spaces of Chennai. At Idhu Chennai Da! we viewed it all through a photographer’s lens.

Heartfelt thanks for their generous contribution: Arun Narasimhan, DakshinaChitra, Haripriya P, Mohan Das Badagara, A Prathap, Ramaswamy N, Radhakrishnan Subramanium a.k.a. Ranjit, Sangeetha Neeraja, SL Shanth Kumar, Sathya Ganapathi and Sudhakar.

EXPOSED AND OUTWARDSChennai through the viewfinder

Good Morning! Give me a tumbler of filter coffee and I can accomplish anything in the world. A typical start to the day for most Chennaiites is their cuppa hot kaapi, a trend that’s not going out of fashion anytime soon. The round the block ‘new age’ coffee shops, with their swanky couches and bloated prices, may have introduced the culture of drinking coffee to a new demographic, but are hardly any competition to the kaapi brigade. All the espressos and cappuccinos cannot replace the humble filter coffee, as the Chennaiites call ‘the real coffee’.

And it is not just South Indians who cherish their filter kaapi. The filter coffee has claimed its spot in most of the top restaurants and hotels across the globe. Our Kaapi Kadai offering its steaming hot filter coffee and freshly fried ‘bhajjis’ brought in many a connoisseur. After all, who can resist the aroma and taste of the glorious kaapi!

KAAPI KADAIChennai’s ‘wakecup’

SNAPSHOTSOf the work-in-progress

INAUGURATIONDecember 16th, 2013

PAINTING COMPETITIONClassmate sponsored a painting competition for school children

at DakshinaChitra on 18th January, 2014 as part of Idhu Chennai Da!

“What do I know about Chennai, much less its popular culture?” were my thoughts as we started the journey towards our first curatorial project. For a person who can’t understand or speak the local language, this was a daunting task.

Tentatively, as I ventured out in the city to find out what Chennai is all about and what constitutes popular culture here, I began to discover the simple and warm ways of the people; it was heartwarming and humbling at the same time.

As chance would have it, I came across some people who were part of the city’s photographic groups. I saw Chennai in bits and pieces through their lens and realized that photography is a popular concept here. It does not need the heavy equipment; a mobile phone does the job quite effectively.

The exhibit took shape gradually and slowly. I saw in photographs, how the life and space in Chennai have changed over time - with the past vanishing from the memories, with the spaces becoming crowded and the ‘photograph’ losing its importance from a special-memorable occasion to just another everyday occurrence. A reflection and introspection into our spaces and lives — past, present and times yet to come.

Anubha JaswalExhibit worked on: Exposed and outwards

TIME TO LOOK BACKAND REFLECT

Five years ago, the moment I saw the huge trees on Haddows road that quietly shielded me from the chaos of heavy traffic, I fell in love with Chennai. I had landed in the city just two weeks earlier and was fretting over my ineluctable destiny which uprooted me from my hometown Trivandrum. Today I breathe Chennai and we have found our souls together.

The first bus travel in Chennai was with my colleagues from SBT, when we were invited to see Golu at a friend’s house. Golu dolls have attracted me since then through their

vividness, variety and colour. Through Golu dolls I was pulled into the social life of Chennai.

Golu: When we filtered down to Idhu Chennai Da! naturally Golu dolls were the first thing that came to my mind. The city has evolved and so has the Golu dolls. Along with the traditional deities and frozen moments of social life, Golu dolls are now accommodating popular figures in religion, politics, cinema and different walks of today’s life.

Light Art: Giant hoardings which were once the hallmark of Chennai have already made way to reveal the skyline but the light art hoardings have simply prevailed here. Once the sun sets, they become the cynosure here. The reading and the field work were excellent learning experiences for me. Emotionally and aesthetically curating the exhibition was a Nava-rasa experience, with the final rasa being ‘Adbudha’ (Wonder).

Asha SasikumarExhibits worked on: Rasagolu, Scintillations

However much I travel or live in different cities, Chennai has this wonderful juxtaposition of tradition and modernity and is the only place I call home. When we decided on the topic for our exhibition, with Chennai being the hero, I was all set to romance the city all over again.

When I thought ‘Chennai’, the first images to pop in my head were that of the auto kaaran, street side tea kadai and the Kollywood hero worship. All these were some of the key icons of Chennai and I had a great time curating these experiences for the exhibition.

From the many trips to Chindadaripet to a photo shoot of auto drivers to sourcing items that belonged to a street side tea/ kaapi kadai to designing a temple with the super hit movies and co-stars of the Kollywood goddess Kushboo, I had fun flirting with the changing yet ever charming faces of my Chennai. This exhibition has not only given me new experiences and memories to cherish but also made me realize how much the city has infiltrated me in many beautiful ways.

Gina JosephExhibits worked on: The Chennai Auto, Kaapi Kadai, Kushboo Temple

How we engage with cinema — the films we make, the ones we watch, whether we sit back and watch passively or come forth and whistle loudly — tells us a lot about the people we are. Having been a film journalist, I naturally veered towards unraveling the cinematic idiom, one that is as old as it is distinct, within the popular culture of Chennai.

The journey that started with books and libraries winded its way down to the beach studios of Marina where colorful tales of the film cut-outs emerged. It further took me into the crowded lanes of Richie Street, the vibrant corners of Mylapore, to decrepit studios, even into the homes and lives of people who swear by their film icons and have their famous dialogues tattooed onto their memories. My respect for the art on the street walls of Chennai only grew as I peeled off their many layers of color, posters, graffiti and advertising.

I can no longer see Chennai from the eyes of the stranger. The brouhaha of the popular has helped me tap into the very pulse of the city and make it my own.

Priya KrishnamoorthyExhibits worked on: Konjam Nadinga Boss, Firsht- Class Beach Studio, Story of a street wall

Chennai is my home. This is where I was born; this is where I grew up. When you have spent so many years in one city, you would think you know the place inside out - at least, that is what I believed.

Idhu Chennai Da! gave me the opportunity to look at my home city through new eyes. It made me want to find out something that was so uniquely Chennai. Something that is nourished by its diversity, adored by the masses and nurtured by time.

To showcase lingo that you hear once you step onto the streets was a fun experience!

When I decided to explore the music of the masses, I decided, a live experience was the way to go. Talking to the gaana singers while preparing for the performance, I traveled back and forth in time, keeping pace with the beats of songs old and new; listening to their stories and sharing their excitement and love for music. The highlight of the show was a gaana single, coined especially for the exhibition, Idhu Chennai Da!

Srinithi SrinivasanExhibits worked on: Vaanga Pesalam, Gaana music performance, Story of a street wall

Medha RamjiExhibits worked on: The Mariamman Temple, Of gods and popular images

Little did I know that a city like Chennai, which I have known and lived in, right from the time I was a child, had much more in store than I had thought. Idhu Chennai Da! helped me connect deeply to a city that was my own. As the story of the city unraveled itself, it enhanced my understanding of how Chennai as a city had transformed itself over time.

The thought of Chennai’s popular culture brought to my mind the numerous images of gods, goddesses and other religious icons. I decided to delve into the world of ‘Calendar Art’ and the most known, Amman temples found in almost every corner of the city. As I explored parts of the city from old to new, the numerous trips to Parrys Corner and Mylapore, helped me rediscover an environment that had regenerated itself through the ages.

For giving us the ‘The POPULAR Talk’ and opening up our minds and hearts to what the city has to offer:

Deborah Thiagarajan, MD Muthukumaraswamy, Sadanand Menon, Ashvin Rajagopalan, Ashrafi Bhagat, AR Venkatachalapathy, V Geetha, N Ramachandran, Chef Praveen Anand, Chef Roy Satheesan, Sharan Apparao, M Natesh, Geeta Doctor,

Mohan Ram, Thota Tharani, Theodore Baskaran.

For being the wind beneath our wings and standing by us all through:

Sarath Nambiar, Nalini Radhakrishnan, Vishalam, Thyagarajan Sir, Lakshmi Thiagarajan, Gita, Vishalam Ramanathan, Shailesh BO, Poochi Venkat, Stalin from College of Arts, Indumathi Mohan, Rekha Vijayshankar, Padmavathy Anantram, Varadhan, Ganapathy C,

Vinayak Moorthy, Stella Karunakaran, Das Chettan and Varadhan, Amirthanathan L.

Radha Ramachandran for her excellent design skills.

All our faculty members, with whose constant inspiration and guidance we have come a long way.

All the staff and workers at DakshinaChitra and MCF who went that extra mile in making the exhibition a grand success.

A big thank you to our generous sponsors, without whose support, “ Idhu Chennai Da” wouldn’t have been possible.

Title Sponsor:

Associate Sponsors:

Ever grateful,

Anubha Jaswal, Asha Sasikumar, Gina Joseph, Medha Ramji, Priya Krishnamoorthy and Srinithi Srinivasan.

We would like to express ourspecial appreciation and thanks

For more details on Diploma in Arts Management, please visit http://www.dakshinachitra.net/scripts/internshipdiploma.asp

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Tel: 2491 8943/ 2446 2435

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Chennai - 603 118.

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