Do youngsters know the mystifying story of hakims and veds, or the bonesetters and roadside dentists who carry on their business quietly in the winding streets of the city? Does a quintessential city-bred person know how a Tulasi plant can serve as a remedy for several diseases, besides various other herbs grown in the country? In a bid to unveil the rich culture of medicine in India, Medicine Art, an arts project by Wellcome Collection, the public cultural venue in London of the Wellcome Trust – one of the world’s biggest medical charities, was recently launched in the city.
According to Ratan Vaswani, project consultant for Medicine Corner, “The aim of the project is to look at the glorious variety of ways Indian civilisation, historically and today, has approached health and healing. It will throw light on the world-beating advances that India has made in affordable medical technology, such as the Jaipur foot; scientifically advanced surgical techniques that were developed in India in pre-colonial times, and also, how traditional medicine has evolved. There was never, historically, an Ayurvedic or Unani pharmaceutical industry but now it’s huge. How that happened is something we will examine.”
As a prologue to what one can look forward to in the year-long project of research that would culminate with an exhibition and small documentaries in 2016, BLOT! had its team capturing videos of informal practitioners, images of educational charts taught to children and producing animation works to come up with over a three minute video that marked Medicine Corner’s launch in the city. With high octane electronic beats to go in the background, Avinash Kumar from BLOT! says that the idea of the video is to make the project reach the youth, and convert the research into something that people would be curious about.
According to Ratan, the idea to club a topic like Medicine with art, comes from the work that Wellcome Trust does. “It’s focus isn’t just lab or field research. It has always been interested in exploring medicine as a cultural phenomenon. In London, it has a public cultural venue, Wellcome Collection. The gallery there shows contemporary art. It has a magnificent Library full not just of manuscripts but amazing historical paintings and other wonders,” he says. Apart from BLOT!, Medicine Corner will be collaborating with curator Lina Vincent, who will help organise a major exhibition at the CSMVS museum in Mumbai in January 2016, and other visual artists.
For details, visit their website: www.medicinecorner.in
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Express Features / February 04th, 2015