Over a million Indian soldiers fought in World War I of which 60,000 were killed in the fighting.

Elke Falat and Julia Tieke put together Digging deep, Crossing far, a series of workshops and exhibitions to throw light on hitherto unexplored aspects of the war.

“The objective is to start a discussion on topics in the first World World that are often neglected in the writing of history, such as the German perspective on the prisoner of war camps or how the non-European world was involved,” says Julia. “This is the first part of a long-term project we will continue in other countries. Through questions and archives, we will get into conversation with artists and through them, the audience on topics like war, nation building, propaganda and recognition.”

Their stopover in Bengaluru, titled ‘First encounter, Bangalore’, was on display at the Max Mueller Bhavan and the Bangalore Literature Festival.

They will also be taking their work to Pakistan, Morocco Tunisia, Algeria, the village of Wunsdorf and Berlin.

“It is not as though we are revealing something new. Everybody knows what we are talking about, but it is not in their collective consciousness,” says Elke.

One of the focal points of the exhibition is the German Prisoner of War camps near Berlin, on which Julia was conducting research for a radio programme.

“I stumbled upon the image of a postcard showing the first mosque built in Germany which was in the camp. Then I found articles by academic institutions which were involved in research on the type and history of sound archives in the prisoner of war camps,” she recalls.

“I thought it was a contemporary topic, it can relate to so many things like the German call for jihad or the relationship between the so-called Western world and Islam. The idea was to involve artists so they would work with the material in different ways and try to get into conversation about what it means.”

These camps, explains Elke, hosted a constellation of Colonial soldiers from North Africa and British India, even Bangalore. And so the exhibition in Bangalore featured four artists who each explored different perspectives of the war in the context of India.

Surekha, a Bangalore-based artist, explored the city’s connection with the war through ‘Black Pepper & Red Pepper’, a series of photographs depicting the role of the Madras Sappers, who designed the Bangalore Torpedo war weapon and the Mysore Imperial Army. The artist captured the bravery and skill of the Indian soldiers; the socio-political context of the war, through the code words ‘Red pepper’ for British soldiers and ‘Black pepper’ for the Indian soldiers; and depictions of the Indian soldiers in the war.

“The photographs printed on aluminium are quite uncanny. They are clear yet capture the passage of time. The people in the photographs appear like ghosts. Viewers will be able to understand what happened just by looking at the photographs, it is almost like a history lesson,” says Elke.

The exhibition featured yet another Bengaluru-based artist, Ayisha Abraham, whose grandfather fought in the war. Through a deconstructed photograph, Ayisha explored the consequences of a self-transformation of identity on his heritage.

Artist-author Sarnath Banerjee offered a national perspective through his notice boards titled The reduced history of the First World War, 2015. Through his series of black and white drawings, he captured scenes from the war featuring the Indian independence as well as the racial contexts.

While Gilles Aubry, a Berlin-based Swiss artist, known for his research on the history of sound, explored the Indian prisoners’ recordings in the German prisoner of war camps. He presented two tuning forks, of the note ‘A’ and the sound ‘Om’ which play in between the recording of a Hindi song sung by an Indian prisoner. He also presented the recording of a voice reciting a translated list of words recorded in the camps.

“His work is a reflection on what these techniques of recording tell us about science, the grammar of power and the knowledge of Colonial practices. He presents a link between Berlin and India,” explains Elke.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Harshini Vakkalanka / Bengaluru – December 07th, 2015