Blind Boys by Asit Poddar

Introduction

In the background can be seen the Peace Mural done by Blind Boys at the Blind Boys' Academy in India. It is an amazing work of art which anyone can retrace by closing the own eyes, then feel a cup, the shape, before transferring that form onto the paper. The blind boys did it by first putting thread on paper. The threads were glued with gum to the paper and always the fingers deciding if the shape was the one meant to be. One additional factor was added. Each of the threads had knots to indicate the colour e.g. eight knots for red, six for blue. Accordingly the images attained their colors despite the boys not able to see these colors. But the paint box was like any brille clear in the correspondence between knots of the thread and the kind of color they could find in the paint box. When the peace mural was finished all the boys went up to it and touched the works of the others. Everyone was astonished what the others had managed to achieve. If it can be imagined what light they brought into the Kids' Guernica exhibition then in turn our knowledge based on visual reference should be questioned or not taken for granted in light of what the Blind Boys communicate to the world about their wish for peace.

Hatto Fischer

Takuya Kaneda and Asit Poddar with children from Athens School

Asit Poddar Artist, India is himself an artist and a member of the Kids' Guernica International Committee. He has studied in Japan, thus speaks fluently that language, and therefore works closely together with Takuya Kaneda, the international coordinator of Kids' Guernica.

The First Mural by the Blind Boys at the Blind Boys Academy in Kolkata, India (2007)

Asit Poddar

In the year 2006 Hatto Fischer of Poiein kai Prattein in Athens, Greece informed me that they are going to hold a Kids’ Guernica exhibition on the island of Chios. The island is near Turkey.

Prior to that I had participated in the first Kids’ Guernica exhibition organised by Poiein kai Prattein in Crete. It was a wonderful experience. There I met among others Spyros Mercouris, poets like Katerina Anghelaki Rooke, Dostena Laverge and coordinators of Kids’ Guernica actions from Afghanistan, USA, Greece.

2006 was the centenary year of Indian national artist Binod Behari Mukherjee. Although he was blind most of his artistic life, still he had continued his art works till death.

There were done some Kids’ Guernica murals done by the mentally handicapped children in India and Japan, but so far no Kids’ Guernica mural was done by blind children. It should be recalled that also the Greek philosopher Pluto had been blind.

I went to a blind school one hour drive from Kolka to talk to the principle of the school. After I had presented him with the idea of making a mural, he asked me to talk to the boys. The blind boys were all eager to do a painting for the peace.

I had several conversations with the blind boys. We tried to find out ways how they can do it. They cannot do it unless they can touch and feel. So we arranged to use cotton wool and then to know what colour to use, we put 10 knots for white, 8 knots for red, three knots for green etc. And then we gave them gum so that they could paste the threads onto the paper when forming the objects they wished to draw and represent.

But then again there was the problem of the size of the canvas. This they could not easily understand. The big size was simply too big for them. How much does it take to reach with the hand the other outer edge? We let them touch the whole big Kids’ Guernica canvas (7,8 x 3,5 m) and then we let them make waves with the whole canvas or else to walk around the entire canvas. Even that was little problem for them. They simply could not understand the size.

Then I gave them a small size of paper. They did their painting on the paper by using the colour cotton thread and gum. They put pastel colours on the paper by touching the brail on the pastel box and picked the colour corresponding to the knots of the thread.

Then we pasted all the individual works on paper onto the main canvas.

It took them one week to make the mural during that hot summer of Kolkata.

A few days were devoted to giving them orientation. 14 boys participated to make the painting.

Once we had hung up the painting inside the school, the boys were so happy. They went up to it to touch and to feel it even if they could not tell what the other boys had painted. Still they got a sense of it by touching the cotton cords to realize what other works existed besides their own. It was really a communication between the blind boys.

The blind boys are very strong in mind and they do have a philosophy about life. They are very confident and thus they asked me many questions. Repeatedly they asked me later on when speaking with them by phone why people make war? Is that a religious war which is going on right now?

In the school for the blind, there study Hindu, Muslims and Christians all together. They say we need to stay together, not to think about fighting between us.

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Blind Boys by Asit Poddar