Tagirem Gallego García, Ian Magedera and Antara Mukherjee are experimenting with the variable speeds possible in photostories to deliver rich scholarly content.
LATEST…. from 15 to 20 January 2023, come and see the Rivertime banners on tour from Sodepur to Chinsurah!
for tour dates and venues please email: magedera@yahoo.com
Neline Mondal’s ‘Rivertime 1854-1396’*, is a majestic artwork of five giant silk banners representing Bandel, Chunchura, Chandannagar, Srirampur and Barrakpur before the railways came and when the Ganga and the roads were more important than they are today.
*Asim Mondal’s assistance with the wax infilling on two of the banners and with applying of colours is gratefully acknowledged
What: these are five, 10-foot by 3.5-foot banners that use both heritage practices (batik) and heritage materials (Murshidabad silk) to disseminate awareness about cultural and built heritage in five riverside settlements in multilingual Hooghly. In harmony with the AHRC/ICHR Hugli River of Cultures Project that focused on the river as a conduit of culture, a choice was made to highlight the period between the construction of the Serampore Roth – 1396 – to the coming of the railway to the western bank in 1854 (the Eastern Bengal Railway was established after it in 1857). ‘Rivertime 1854-1396’ is a period before the everyday rattle, tooting, shaking of the trains extracting raw materials and moving goods and people faster than watercraft. The artist, Neline Mondal, however, reserves the right to include elements outside this timeframe on account of their emotional charge.
Photostory presentation of the five batik banners
Bandel
Chunchura
Chandannagar-
Srirampur
Barrakpur
‘Rivertime 1854-1396’ de Neline Mondal, Cinq bannières en soie géantes représentant Bandel, Chunchura, Chandannagar, Srirampur et Barrakpur (traduction française de Sara Nefzaoui)
Un message de l’artiste à l’audience :
Bienvenue à ‘Rivertime’ ! Que vous ayez cinq minutes pour chacune de mes bannières ou cinq heures, veuillez comprendre qu’il ne s’agit en aucun cas ni de cartes ni de vues satellites de ces cinq villes de Hooghly; vous ne pouvez pas les déchiffrer en un instant. Au lieu de cela, accédez à « Rivertime » avec moi, là où la géographie physique est réinventée dans l’art.
Dans ces bannières, la berge est allongée, sa longueur doublée. La rive inférieure, comme illustrée ici est une vue aérienne du départ d’une personne par la rivière d’une ville, la rive supérieure ressemble à ce que cette personne pourrait voir à son retour par l’eau.
« Rivertime » est l’espace-temps entre les deux, remontant de 1854 à 1396, englobant une période avant l’arrivée des chemins de fer.
Dans les eaux bleues de Hugli, les navires Européens remontent la rivière de l’océan vers les terres, et les navires Bengali se dirigent vers le large.
Trouverez-vous le temps de déchiffrer mon puzzle ? (Casse-tête visuel) qui cache les chiffres des dates clés à travers ces bannières ?
Posez-vous ces questions « Quelle heure est-il là-bas ? » et “où se trouve le soleil et n’y en a-t-il qu’un seul ? »
Description du matériel : cinq bannières de 10 pieds sur 3.5 pieds qui utilisent à la fois des pratiques patrimoniales (batik) et des matériaux patrimoniaux (soie de Murshidabad) pour transmettre le patrimoine culturel bâti dans cinq colonies riveraines dans un Hooghly multilingue. En harmonie avec le projet rivière Hugli et ses cultures de l’AHRC/ICHR qui met l’accent sur la rivière en tant que fil conducteur pour la culture, un choix délibéré a été fait pour mettre en évidence la période entre la construction du Serampore Roth – 1396 – et l’arrivée des chemins de fer à la rive occidentale en 1854 (Les chemins de fer du Bengal oriental a été créé après en 1857)
« Rivertime 1854-1396 » est une période d’avant les perturbations du quotidien, le tintement, les secousses des trains extrayant les matières premières et déplaçant les marchandises et les personnes aussi rapidement que dans les embarcations. Cependant, l’artiste Neline Mondal, se réserve le droit d’inclure des éléments hors de cette période en raison de leur charge émotionnelle.
Photostories previewing a Bengali batik chronicle before its online launch in September 2021. During the C-19 pandemic, photostories were used to deliver the preparatory first phase that prepared the ground for the launch event viewable here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC1SvYflesk
A message from the artist to the viewer (la traduction française de ce message se trouve ci-dessous):
Welcome to ‘Rivertime’! Whether you have five minutes for each of my banners or five hours, please understand that these are neither maps nor satellite views of these five Hooghly towns; you cannot flash read them in an instant. Instead, enter ‘Rivertime’ with me where physical geography is re-imagined in art. In these banners the riverbank is elongated, its length doubled. The lower bank as shown here is a plan view of a person’s departure by river from a town, the upper bank resembles what that person might see on their return by water. ‘Rivertime’ is the time-space in-between, it moves back from 1854 to 1396, encompassing a period before the railways came. In the blue Hugli water, the European ships head upriver, inland from the sea and the Bengali ships head seawards. Will you find the time to decipher my number rebus (visual puzzle) that has hidden the numbers of key dates across the banners? Ask yourself, ‘what time are these places?’ and ‘where is the sun and is there only one?’
Material description: five, 10-foot by 3.5-foot banners that use both heritage practices (batik) and heritage materials (Murshidabad silk) to disseminate awareness about cultural and built heritage in five riparian settlements in multilingual Hooghly. In harmony with the AHRC/ICHR Hugli River of Cultures Project that focused on the river as a conduit of culture, a deliberate choice was made to highlight the period between the construction of the Serampore Roth – 1396 – to the coming of the railway to the western bank in 1854 (the Eastern Bengal Railway was established after it in 1857). ‘Rivertime 1854-1396’ is a period before the everyday rattle, tooting, shaking of the trains extracting raw materials and moving goods and people faster than watercraft. The artist, Neline Mondal, however, reserves the right to include elements outside this timeframe on account of their emotional charge.
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Virginia Soukup
Mapping Printing & Publishing in Pondicherry 1937-1960, a case study of the works of Yvonne Robert Gaebelé
Vers une représentation cartographique de la production du livre à Pondichéry entre 1937 et 1960, le cas de l’œuvre de Yvonne Robert Gaebelé
Guillaume Bridet et le décloisonnement de la littérature française par l’Inde
Guillaume Bridet and the Decompartmentalization of French Literature by India
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Gérard Le Bouëdec sur l’Inde et les échanges entre la France et l’océan Indien
Saibal Das and his Reconstructive Palimpsest of Memories, Nostalgia and Broken Bricks in Chandannagar West Bengal
Clovis Albert Galopin, 1934-2017: a Narrative of Tolerance in Chandannagar, West Bengal
A photostory about the social history of Chandernagore as a place of Indian/European encounter and hybridity.
Kalyan Chakraborty and Giri-Doot in Chandannagar, West Bengal
A photostory about the Chandernagore cultural heritage organisation Giri-Doot (http://www.hallochandannagar.com/) and its founder Kalyan Chakraborty.
Pierre Loti & Claude Debussy
Le pianiste Mathieu Grégoire (Lyon, France) interprète “La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune” de Claude Debussy. Quel est le rapport entre cette partition et l’Inde?
Andrew Bowhay and the Goldsmith Catalogue in the British Library, London
Former anaesthetist Andrew Bowhay gives an insight into his work with “French Books on India” meticulously tracing references to early printed books at the British Library, London via Goldsmith’s British Museum Short Title Catalogue of French Books for (1601-1700).
Ian Magedera (University of Liverpool) & French Books on India
Ian Magedera presents the open access multilingual discovery tool “French Books on India” and takes you through a sample research query on education in India and France prior to the Jules Ferry reforms.