“Make in India is not important but Create in India is” -Rajeev Sethi
New Delhi : One of the Capital city’s oldest art galleries Gita Art Gallery, which recently reopened as GAG Moderne, organised the second edition of “Underground Talks” in collaboration with an NGO Empowerment at the galley itself in Sadhna Enclave. For the second talk programme Manish Pushkale was in conversation with one of India’s most creative designers Rajeev Sethi, who is also a scenographer and an art curator, besides being an awardee of the Padma Bhushan award. In a freewheeling chat they spoke about the experience of Mr Sethi in the field of Design, Scenograph, art and public intellect.
Inspired by Andre Maurois words who once said “Art is an effort to create, beside the real world, a more humane world, the idea behind ’Underground Talks” is to have conversations between artist Manish Pushkale and an eminent guest from the world of art every month. the objective of the talk is to bring together creative minds to share their views focused on subjects of burning interest to the public, giving the creative fringe of society an opportunity to articulate intelligent opinion in the mainstream, as well as to foster learning, inspiration and provoke conversations that matter.
Sharing his experience Mr Sethi said, “It’s not about form or texture or the skill, what we all should look for is some kind emotional connects. Art made with an emotional connect by the artists is something that moves you”. Talking about the present education system, he said, “The education system In India has totally collapsed. We follow the old colonial system and have forgotten our cultural system, and our government is equally responsible for phasing it out. From our curriculum.
About the government’s ‘Make in India initiative, he reiterated that it not important “but Create in India’ is: Elaborating on it, he said, “12 million people come out {of institutions) every year educated, but empty handed with no jobs. They are made to learn skills which phase out or become out dated in the next 3 to 4 years, so why not allow creativity to bloom and make them masters so that they can adapt with the changing time. There are so many skilful people in our villages but we don’t relish them and their skills.”
Talking on the Gandhi ji he said, “Not just he but many people have been influenced by his life. For me, to carry out all the work commenced by him is not possible. A new generation needs to come up and take this forward as there are so many aspects of his life which can be inspiring.
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Re-launched as “GAG Moderne” in the month of March, Neha Talwar and Anirudh Tripathi now head the gallery in its new avatar. Its debut exhibition ‘Paradox of Silence’ curated by NeAnGo studio was a show featuring works of masters like Rameshwar Broota, Manish Pushkale, Manu Parekh, Mona Rai, Amitava Das, Shobha Broota, Hem Raj, Kalicharan Gupta etc. Besides a meticulous display of some of the chosen works of the aforementioned artists, there was a spellbinding installation by NeAnGo Studio as well.