Hema Upadhyay est une artiste indienne qui expose dans le cadre de Bombay Maximum City. Le public français a pu déjà la découvrir lors de l’Indian Summer » de 2005 à Ensba de Paris. Son travail Wish a Dream, Dream a Wish, est de celui qui ont touché le plus les visiteurs. Ca parle de nostalgie, d’exil, de transmission, et ce n’est pas triste un peu comme si le cafardeux automne se transformait en été indien Entretien dans la langue de Kipling ( dont le père dirigea l’école d’art JJ de Bombay.)
LNT: Hema, your work about Bombay, a sort of plan of the city, is made from used materials. Soft drinks cans? Huma YUpadhyay : No they are aluminium metal sheets. I bought them from a shop in the market. But at the base they are recycled car sheets. Old cars are dismounted and all parts are used. Is it a real map of Bombay? No, it’s a very concentrated zoom of a particular area in B., the biggest slum in Asia. This work deals of the population who lives in slums. It’s about people who migrate into the city. About political and social structuring, about politics of land in the city. B. is a city where so many people migrate, there is a certain part of population who cannot afford the houses in B. They go in squats, in the mountain, all the spaces that are available. This people come from the countryside ?. Some come from other cities, some have crossed borders, some come another part of B. Do you live in B, in a slum? Not in a slum. Some people who work with me live in it, and have a shop in the slum. The maid who makes my housework is from the slum. But this work is not sympathy it is an observation and a realisation of the complexity of being in a city. I’m not saying slums are a bad thing, I’m just saying they are a result of the complexity.I’m not an activist. I have a story of immigration myself. My parent migrated from Pakistan to India. And I migrated from Baroda i( northwest of India ) in Bombay. Your parents were Hindus ? Yes. I am a sindhi ii, a community originated from Sind in Pakistan. So during the partition we were asked to leave Pakistan, which became an all-Muslims country. There was a lot of violence. It was all shifts in terms of many bases. I have a history of that. When I look a t the slums there is something parallel at looking at the all history of migration. Your parents have never had to live in a slum? No. I’m looking at the slums as the issue of migration, and the possibilities, the complexity, the structure of the city. My father passed last month, he used to be in a constant discussion about Sind, because he was very nostalgic, he was a grown up kid, when he left Pakistan. I have literally grown-up with stories of migration. My grandfather often told me about it. Strangely, we were four kids in the house, and I would be the only one he would tell, because I was the only one to listen and say “and then what happened?” Do you think there’s something to do with you becoming an artist ? Could be, yes. I think an artist has a lot of sensibility and my grandfather must have felt, “among the children, this one understands what I’m saying, he’s sensitive.” He must have sensed my capacity of understanding the complex situation of migration. My work alos deals with other venues whicj developed over a period of time through work experience and interaction in form of reading showcasing sicussion with the audience. So an artist is someone who hears the voices… From people, situations and objects around I think From the past and from the future , yes. And I think that artists are result of surrounding as well. I feel that all the works of Indians artists are heavy with the weight of memory of ages and ages. I think its because we are a nations which is only sixty years old in terms of freedom, but a thousands of year in terms of culture. Contemporary artists don’t use traditional European Clichés about India. Because of Gandhi, we think that Indian people would avoid using western products. Indian artists don’t use so much Indian stuff. My generation, we are the hybrids with a huge inheritance. We have varied preferences and beliefs, but I know many artists who don’t follow the culture of the oldest. We’ve got this cliché about Bollywood. It has no effect on young artist works. Bollywood has an ideology of dream and has an impact you can’t believe. But you don’t dance around trees singing songs, you don’t ? It’s a fantasy. The young artistes are more influenced by their studies. Each art school in India has his own philosophy, some are about fantasy; Baroda, my school, is more about narrative, and also a lot of contemprary, abstract and conceptual work was happening and encouraged. In Bombay JJiii is more abstract at one point Claude Berry is buying your work are you pleased ? What is more important to me is that somebody understands my work and C.B. did. I talked him about my work. I don’t know much about his films but I will investigate. I think your work speak directly to our hearts, and then to our minds.. I don’t know if its related to heart but we have a philosophy of down to earth, if you don’t lose contact with the earth you won’t lose contact with your history, your nostalgia. Nostalgia is not negative ; I think nostalgia keeps you alive, if there’s no nostalgia, no history books would be written.Are English more interested in your work, because they’ve got a history with India ?No, anyone who can understand the complexity of a partitioned country can understand my work. Everybody can be touched by your wok because everybody, even living in his hometown can feel far from his childhood, for instance. Yes I think it’s familiar.
(propos recuillis par jfg)
NOTES
i Grande ville, ancienne capitale de la principauté du même nom, actuellement dans la province de Gujarat.
ii Les Sindhis, parlent une langue ( le sindhi) différente de la majorité des pakistanais ( l’ourdou). Ils sont l’objet de persécutions de la part du pouvoir nationaliste (ils forment la plus importante minorité du pays) et islamiste (trois des trente millions de Sindhis du Pakistan sont hindouistes). 3 millions sont installés en Inde, depuis l’émigration de masse de 1948 ( date des premiers massacres). www worldsindhicongress.org
iii Nom de l’école d’art de Bombay d’après les initiale de son fondateur qui fit dortune, entre autres, dans le trafic d’opium.
