Virus

In the 1990s, various NGOs in India realised the potential for patachitra scrolls to convey messages about birth control, hygiene and communal tolerance. The American Red Cross commissioned scrolls on the spread of HIV, which were carried to West Bengal villages to educate inhabitants.

In Virus Monimala Chitrakar (India c.1970s) depicts the virus as a group of fluttering moths and demonic monsters swallowing whole their mostly female victims.

The rights of women in India have also become an important concern. Although patachitra scrolls were traditionally created only by men because of the solitary travel required, now some of the most skilled patachitra artists are women.

Patachitra, or ‘pats’, are scroll paintings from West Bengal, intimately bound up with itinerant storytelling and songs. Historically, patachitra were cloth scrolls on which mythological or epic stories were painted as a sequence of frames. The artists (patua) would travel from village to village, slowly unrolling the scrolls and singing the stories. Patachitras have been compared to cinema frames or animation, and are said to be one of the oldest forms of audiovisual communication.

Exhibited in 'The 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art' (APT8) | 21 Nov 2015 – 10 Apr 2016