Nestled in the Dhauladhar range of Himachal Pradesh, this art space is helping bring organised creative expression to rural India

Almost a year ago, a former primary school near Palampur was transformed into an art center called Baadi.The artist behind this project is the notoriously reclusive, 34-year-old, Lallan. A pastoralist from the Aravalis, who  has spent almost a decade working with text, video, performance, new media, fabric and mixed media. His last two series;  a multimedia project that took six years to complete saw him throw light on subjects that don’t have access in otherwise largely elitist art spaces by building on the essay  by Cuban filmmaker Julio Garcia Espinosa on an Imperfect Cinema. This exhibit saw him divide Espinoa’s essay into four interactive audio visual clips. The second series, Anatomy of Pulp, which was collage made with newspaper pulp, prints and found wood dealt with the human tendency to produce text, and then consume it later

Living in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, for the last couple of years, interacting with the locals and seeing the creativity around made him dream of opening up a community studio, trying to get villagers, artists, environmentalists, thinkers, policy makers together in order  to try and foster a rural arts initiative that was sustainable. 

This dream was realised last year with Baadii. Set in the confluence of three village panchayats in the area of Kandbari, near Palampur in Himachal Pradesh, the art space is named after Baadii Khas, the village in which it is located. Lallan says, “The space is a melting pot of sorts for all things art in the villages of the region, here in upper Kangra Valley. It’s not very far from the city of Palampur, and the adjoining towns of Baijnath and Paprola, all of which are about 20 kms away.The space started as an open studio (where I was pursuing my own practice) that I had rented, and then later organically came into becoming this space where people from the village come together to make, exhibit and experience art, including myself.”

He says, his own art practice is concerned with the social and political, more in the rural spaces than the otherwise practiced drawing room art for the elite-by the elite, as popularly seen in cities like Delhi and Mumbai. “I don’t believe in the concept of specialised or trained artists, but in art’s presence in everyone at some level. I consider Baadii an extension of that philosophy where all such boundaries are blurred and art becomes a bridge for everything of concern that we as people need to address, specially in the rural context of things.”

As far as expectations go, Lallan says that he wants this space to serve something very elemental that quintessentially lacks in most communities, which is access to art and art spaces. “Artists need to practice and educate in rural spheres now more than ever, and I expect Baadi to be owned by the villagers here, where in future it becomes an important part of the community. Kangra and it’s native ways of life are brimming with amazing things, when it comes to art, music, architecture, design, food, and festivals etc, and we are seeing a lot of that being depleted as everywhere, in the wave of senseless urbanisation inflicted by people who live in the cities. It’s a major cause of concern, ethnically and anthropologically, and I hope with Baadii here, we can instill and preserve some of it, as it’s of immense geographical and cultural value to the people here.”

Almost puritanical in his approach, the lack of democratisation in the art world is something of a sore spot with this artist, who says, that it becomes hard to practice and create in a space, knowing there is immense discrimination and othering in the niche that is the art community in India. “Art for arts sake as a concept does not exist in India. We do not know of any community spaces dedicated to the arts. Although common people in metropolitan cities have access to high end galleries and festivals, they seldom have the knowledge about the work they consume and then of course, there is the bourgeoise element of art that makes it all very reductive.The way things are, a very common, state transport riding- low income person if can not own any ‘popular’ artwork, has also by default been reduced to never being educated enough about anything that art is.”

Artist and founder of Baadii arts village, Lallan

He goes on to say, what he’s doing at Baadii is essential for him as an artist because art is not restricted to artists alone in this space. For example, one of the exhibitions here had a naturalist using his museum as installation to display in the village gallery The first exhibition was by a 16-year-old girl, who happened to do art among many other things. One was about making wall art out of renamed pressed flowers collected locally by a group of school kids as a result of a workshop here. “My long term goal is to grow and reach as many people as possible. I wish to have maximum interaction, and community participation, as possible.”

Baadii was on hiatus because of the Covid-19 pandemic since March but is resumed to open this October. The art space also has an ongoing open call for its very first residency this winter. “It is totally focused on learning from the rural ecosystem. We aim to facilitate an exchange of knowledge between the participant and the village. Rather than the traditional way of going about the residency we are throwing it open for the participant to design and pursue, keeping in mind several basics of the place where we are. It’s an invitation of exchange to not just artists, but to people from any field who would like to use arts and an art space as a bridge to share, express and exchange.”

You can read all about it and apply here.