Old Martinians
Labore et Constantia
‘Happenings’ in our Old Schools and Locations
NEWS & VIEWS 5
Not another brick in the wall
“Grafiti”.This art form, a vehicle for dissent and free expression, dates back to early Roman civilization. In its modern avatar, it thrives in parts of the country, including its original Indian hub
Eighty-two-year-old Shanu Lahiri laughs when you label her “anti anti-establishment”. She doesn’t deny the tag though.
Twenty-five years after the artist completed her first graffiti wall in Kolkata—an inoffensive portrayal of teen life outside La Martiniere for Girls school—the many walls Lahiri has painted since then have reminded viewers of a subtler sensibility in a city scribbled with aggressive political graffiti.
Public art: Artist Shanu Lahiri’s first graffiti was a portrayal of teen life outside La Martiniere school for Girls; and a graffiti-laden wall near Elgin Road, Kolkata. Indranil Bhoumik / Mint
In the late 1970's, when Lahiri joined Rabindra Bharati University (RBU) in Kolkata as a reader in the visual arts department, the city’s walls bore testimony to the socio-political turmoil of that era. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”, “China’s chairman is our chairman”, “Down with the bourgeois” were some of the dominant statements scribbled on walls. Amid such a chilling call-to-arms, Lahiri plotted visual and psychological relief.
“This was the Naxalite period and most political graffiti provoked bloodshed. I feared for children growing up under the shadow of violence. I realized the same art that incited violence could be used to create something beautiful,” says the artist, who studied fine arts at Kolkata’s Government College of Art and Craft and art theory at the Louvre in Paris.
With the help of her students at RBU, Lahiri’s cartoonish creations added colour to the fish market at Sreebhumi, distinctive expressions of animal life graced the walls inside Fort William, a road roller at Rabindra Sarobar got a facelift with asymmetric patterns, and the “blood for blood” sloganeering post-Indira Gandhi’s assassination was replaced with figurative and decorative images at Amherst Street, as part of a residents’ project under Lahiri’s supervision.
Most of her creations now survive in photo albums stowed away in her charming Lake Town home; a lone 220 ft-long wall of graffiti at Justice Chandra Madhav Road, majestically illustrating the coexistence of man and nature, has survived the elements and municipal neglect. “I used Indian subjects over foreign ones. That added to the appeal of street art,” she says.
“This was the Naxalite period and most political graffiti provoked bloodshed. I feared for children growing up under the shadow of violence. I realized the same art that incited violence could be used to create something beautiful,” says the artist, who studied fine arts at Kolkata’s Government College of Art and Craft and art theory at the Louvre in Paris.
With the help of her students at RBU, Lahiri’s cartoonish creations added colour to the fish market at Sreebhumi, distinctive expressions of animal life graced the walls inside Fort William, a road roller at Rabindra Sarobar got a facelift with asymmetric patterns, and the “blood for blood” sloganeering post-
Shanu Lahiri
This article is illustrated with some of her work .
This article is illustrated with some of her work .