Space-Time
photo by kamakshi
When you start a project, how do you get into it?
In that moment, the moment expands, because there is no time. We just give value to time, but for everyone it’s different. We have already found that in Physics through Einstein. You expand the moment, you make it large; and in that expansion, everything starts to take form, more and more. Its like a photograph, you can make it larger. Everything we know now is because of the moment that we expand. With technology like microscopes, we can see the cells of the body, and in the space between the bodies that make the cell there is fluid. In this fluid there is information and that’s what makes the cell. It’s till the point which we make anything larger, because it’s the creative mind that does that, it creates this expansion of the moment. You take the moment and you make it bigger, how much ever you want. And in this expansion, everything is there, you find out the sense of it all. And then automatically everything takes shape, by itself. You are just there in this process, you choose to be in this process. And for everybody and everything, it’s the same – only we don’t find out, we don’t think about it. In cooking also, it’s in the way how you lose yourself in that moment; you cook in that way, in that way you do everything. Because otherwise everything is just work – which means repetition of an act.
What’s your favourite material to work with?
It changes compared to the need. The material water is, because there is the need of water. The material air is, because there is the need of air. Everything changes as compared to the need; and we are there in between, and we fuse it, and things come out – like Nature does. Nature is mixing all this, and changing it from this to that. We are just following that, everything that we belong to is a synthesis of, we are a synthesis of… we exist only because of that.
I have heard that there’s a poet from Ireland, who comes every year to see the Shiva sculpture you’ve made, on a pilgrimage…
Yeah?
Yes, I saw it on the net. He says that he always finds inspiration from it. Do you use three dimensions to create a deeper dimension? And is this intentional?
Anything that we are feeling – it’s a state of mind. We feel angry, it’s a state of mind. We feel happy, it’s just a state of mind – that’s all. They are just states of mind, we are made of that. A state of mind belongs to you. When you are in front of something and it makes you feel like that, it is because it’s opening you, your total body. And it is your body not only now, in this life, but your body in the whole; you connect with all the rest that is there. It belongs to you, but you are separate. You become united with everything, and this opens the door. And in this moment, you just feel inside you and then you know that what is possible. You know yourself and what is possible which before you were not thinking about. Feeling this, that you can find yourself, and being open in a point that you can receive – this is what art brings you, it brings you in that state of mind. You need to create, or find out how it is possible to be in that.
There is not an analyzed border around us, that when we reach the border, then we follow the wall (Laughs) like the ants do to find the way to go out, they just get attached to some border…dug, dug, dug… When they see that, then they go, no? But if this border is closed around you, automatically (Laughs) you turn around. This is the dimension. The dimension is one track. When we speak about three dimensions, it’s already something better, I mean, already there are three. Three dimensions, it means there is not a track of just one dimension – there is also the second and the third. The Chinese say, after the first comes the second. After the second comes the third. And after the third, a thousand things are coming – this is Lao Tzu. It means there are no borders. A thousand dimensions – there are. For now we are already on this point.
Even in art, you can see very well, that it was not possible for them to make the face. It was not possible. Only the profile was possible to make. The face has so many contours, goes in and out at every point. In the dark, the face is just… you don’t see anything, you know. (Laughs) And men took thousands of years to reach more dimensions than the only one. Everything was just reduced to one dimension. Where is the depth, the concept of depth? It looks simple now, but till the Middle Ages they were thinking that this line was a straight line (Gestures to the horizon) that this was just a disc. Now we see very well that it is a sphere, we cannot mistake it. Even if we watch somebody disappearing over the horizon, within a few kilometers already he disappears. But we see that he comes back, it means that he did not fall down. This is something that is taken for granted just in the last 200 years. Now our vision is one vision. See the sphere of the planet? Me, I see the sphere of the planet, just like it is, very easy. Just watch the moon, you don’t see that it is a disc, come on, even the shadow on it is really a curved shadow, and it’s spherical. Its good news for us that we understand now, only now, not before; but now we understand that the different dimensions – they are there. Now we can really see and explore.
Einstein had said that there are 256 realities happening at the same time and that we will discover them.
He was thinking this through Physics, automatically you reach there. But in any science you can reach this point. Even in art, you reach this point. You feel it, without the information through Physics, already you reach.
As an artist, did you teach yourself, or were you trained? Has creativity always come naturally to you?
I was painting, I was doing something, creating something, always. And then I stopped using the brush for painting or for colouring. Apart from that, actually for me, there is no separation between brush and clay and stone. There is no separation, everything goes together. Here is a moment of painting, and there is moment of doing something else. You need to create this, and then on that you can even paint, you know. They are passages – there is painting, there is building, there is carving, the creating depends on the material that you are using. If you carve a crystal, you think to put a crystal, you think to put a certain colour of metal around – already you are into colour without using a brush. Combining the colour of the stones together, or fusing metals, or creating shapes using certain colours in the metals, already you go into painting. When I am working with mud… first of all, I like the colour of mud, and depending on the colour of what I am carving or modeling, which colour is coming to me automatically. That gives me the condition so that I can do this, or that, or its coming out this, and I can choose… I can know what I have to do, just because the colour is there – it is inspiring me, automatically. The blue is inspiring how the blue can inspire, the red… I carve a lot of crystals, I have experience in carving crystals and working with crystals. I mean, its materials, its not… (Laughs) And so you learn – doing things, you learn. You learn because each material has its properties, its hardness, and this and that, and you learn. The more you do, the more you use that material, the more you know about that material – how you can use only that material and not another. So this becomes a big thing; there are branches, and then you can go completely into specialized things because the material wants that.
And what I was saying before, that I was using the brush, painting with the brush, mixing colours with the brush, and then I stopped. I reached where I reached in that moment with the brush and then I stopped to paint. I was working only with clay or other materials. I touched the brush one time after two years, or even three years, and you know, I started from the point that I left three years ago. I had to go back to take some things and it was not possible for me three years after. I needed a little time to start to mix again in the way that I used to, to come to the point where I left and to continue. Ce, I want to tell you what that means. You need to do, otherwise you stop exactly there.
Do you feel when you come back to it after a couple of years that it has gone deeper? Is it different?
You mean the last time compared to the time before. Yeah, let’s say we know that we live in the moment. We have to always be conscious of this. Otherwise we can lose ourselves into an imaginary world. It is not an imaginary world. The world does not exist, it’s just not imaginary. Imaginary is just a conditioning. Nothing is really, really existing. It is just very relative. (Breaks into laughter)
Do you predetermine meaning in your work? What is your vision?
My vision is… What comes is really the thing that must be. To ‘let’s see what comes’ is very difficult, because the mind is much faster than you somehow. When it catches you, this is the point when it’s better to do nothing because it’s a lost point. It means it’s a moment you don’t have the feeling to do, because the moment is really decided. I can translate it into one word – feeling. The meaning is exactly the meaning of the now. It does not belong to you, because the now is the now. That’s why you can create and you can not create, in the same action that you are doing. Its not that you can always create, it’s just that you go for it. But going for it does not mean that you are doing creation. It’s just that you are going for it because you like it, because it’s your history, and you go for it. And in your work, you know how to be in this wave. But it does not belong to you. It’s all of your life coming into this question of the need of the moment. You open yourself to the whole, you contact the beginning, the beginning of life. You contact really yourself deep, deep. And you need to let the hands go, because only like that they can… (Laughs)…know. This is really incredible, it’s really practical, it’s becoming practical in working, you know. You need this state of mind, and then for sure in that state of mind the feeling is there, everything is there… It’s made for it, that you can work, that you can… But in all that, there is also ‘not work’. There is the opposite inside. Its not that okay, you are the artist. You are the artist only when you are working.
How do you put meaning in your work?
I express myself because we are made to express ourselves, it’s not because I wanted to express myself – and everything belongs to that. We exist, and we express ourselves. Everyone is expressing themselves doing something, for everyone there is the particular way that belongs to your connection to life, and through that… You can find incredible people everywhere, in many situations, all groups of people – this is the story also. We are open because we don’t know where it is… (Laughs)…everything is. It’s because of ourselves that we cannot see anything else. We need to be open to the fact that everything has value, we have to give value to everything. You don’t know where it is, but you know that it’s there. Then what do you do? You are not looking in between people; you don’t need to, because you know already that inside each one is something incredible. Don’t think that it’s only this or only that – it’s in everything. We cannot make discrimination on the basis of simply that. There is no discrimination, we are the same. We are one. I cannot decide, I cannot think that everything I’m doing has to have a meaning. The meaning is already in the society where I am, where I live, in which way I am, really. And then what’s coming is really out of me. I let go a little bit, I am not involved in it, because I know that something is coming only if I’m really doing something. And I’m very sorry… (Laughs) …actually I would like that things are just known. You find inner energy, in that meaning you can understand, because you have the energy to do. And in the moment that you are, then you are doing. You can only do certain things if you are lucky, then you can realize them. Sometimes there is the potential, but you cannot do it… And this is really the one point which is very important because many people die before, I mean, many artists that died at 30 years old, or 20 years old, just worked for 2-3 years. Okay, there are other artists like Dali; he really worked, no? Picasso was working hundreds of years, I mean, it’s a long time… (Laughs)
Really prolific…
You understand. They were so busy, like Michelangelo. You see Michelangelo, my God, he was working till 90 years old and more… This is what made Michelangelo… to have this possibility, also. That’s why if an artist has the possibility to do work, normally it must be had. This is the sensibility of the moment to understand that it belongs to the human being; it’s a process that is not easy, after all it’s the creative process, which can help 1000 years more of maintaining something culturally, or like Michelangelo, you know, he’s the proof. If he hadn’t been there, we would still be really in the Middle Ages… (Laughter)
Yeah, he was the Renaissance Revolution…
Yes, he was lucky because he entered in something that was giving… people were giving him the possibility to create, because they understood that it’s for us, it’s not for him. And this is in the way how you help artists, artists in general. All the artists, they are most of them in this problem.
Business…
Business and also surviving; I know many friends of mine that were really very enthusiastic about their work when they were young. Now they do completely different work, because society gets in the way of your sensibility… Society is skinning you, you know, its skinning you. Its difficult to maintain – makes no sense.
Internet and Art – as an artist, how do you see this medium?
The difference between man and anything else on this planet is just because we use tools and nobody else uses tools. We know that the first tool, the stone, was broken in a way to be sharp enough to use for animal skins or whatever, for the need of the moment. We started with that, but you see very well that now nobody is making this tool anymore because we don’t need it anymore, we have improved. Now we use metals, we have other tools – the internet is a tool. It’s a tool of the now, its one tool of the now; I could also use it as television. Its in the music, you see, now with techno, the sound itself really got a boost, its incredible how much sound is there, we never had this possibility before, how you can manipulate each sound and do things. Now the music does not belong to, I don’t know how many instruments – tools. It’s the same word, its just tools for the sound. Some people don’t like the idea because they are still stuck, they want to always listen to the same thing (Laughs) and okay, it’s no problem. Me, I like to listen to what was nice from before also, but it’s past. I see it like this, I can say this – this is past, I accept this very well. I like the Egyptian Pyramids so much, but it’s the past, you know. Now, if you imagine that everyone, because now everyone is a king, now everyone should make a pyramid for only to die. I mean, you know, it’s not possible. It was possible for them, they were few. Now all the deserts of this world would be full of pyramids. (Laughs) It’s really interesting when you watch how we are now, its incredible. When we read something from before, if you read some poetry from, I don’t know when, ”Oh, your legs, like the legs of the giraffe….” (Laughter) Ce, now if you say this to some girl she will look at you like you are, really, you know…
She’ll slap you… Also it depends on what part of the world you are in, because in Africa if you are big – they will love you, and if you are not – they will not love you. It depends where you are, or like you were saying which time period you are living in…
Yes, yes, in which time you are. And this time is always there because you, so intelligent you, if there is a possibility that you are on an island, and you don’t contact anybody, and you have only what you have there, you will be the same like your ancestors 10,000 years ago. You will act the same and you will think the same, it’s incredible. Why? Because these guys and us, in brain content – we are the same. Okay, we memorize, we exercise, and we keep in memory what we are doing, because without memory it was not possible for anything to exist here-now. If I didn’t learn Newton’s formula in school, which can be passed on to the next one, I cannot be a Physicist of now. Its just because of memory, otherwise I don’t have the time to recreate all the experiences again that made us reach to this point. We have the same brain content, our ancestors and us, our species; it’s not that now we know more because our brain is more… No, no, no, no, it’s the same. Then tomorrow, if nobody teaches you something, you will forget everything, you can really fall into the Dark Ages seriously. Nobody is thinking about this – that how can a certain mind that was existing thousands of years ago, exist now? It’s incredible, no? And it’s a very serious story, because that mind is acting with the tools of now. They don’t have a stone in the hand – every mind can use the tools that are here on this planet now. It’s not a question of society or system, its question of each person has this mind.
Its like you were saying, it’s the conflict and the fusion, because it’s different Ages at the same time…
We are creative, and we exist on the planet doing creative things in this moment. We start from what we have now, and we go on. For example with the laws that society has now, we have reached till this point where we are. But it’s possible also to have other laws, we see in history over the years, always that laws have changed. They make other laws, they make them more particular, and society is becoming more and more sophisticated, before it was a very simple society. It means that many mistakes done by people were not so dangerous compared to the society that we live in now.
We are on the point now, especially after the 2nd world war that we have started to consider that the world is one, everybody is connected with somebody else, and then it started to become more and more a planetary affair, more than separate nations. The nation now is nothing if it’s not in the organization of the world. At this point, it’s not enough to be just a nation; because you need to import, to export, you have materials to sell. And now there is a global law which has a limit, because each law has a limit. And the limit is in what is really happening in the world – the limit of the law itself. Because if there is a law that if you kill somebody, you go in prison. Automatically, the prisons are full of people that have killed somebody. Its not that the law stops somebody to kill, you understand? If you make more restrictions, another law, automatically you will have the prison full again, by the law that restricts that. You create the people who afterwards occupy this prison. Society is creating this automatically, no? Then you can think about it and say, okay, but this law is a law that is creating the killer. The law against the killing is creating the killer, the law against stealing is creating the robber. Automatically, each law that they make is to create something as compared to the law. Then once this law is there, there will be the guy who is in the prison for doing that. That means that we are really in a mess. What I want to say is it’s a world where human beings are very much into the revenge trip of the child… still. It means that we have not reached the point of really, really being a society – we are still wild. Each one of us is still a wild animal, controlled by the law. Otherwise if the law wasn’t there, it would really be chaos. But now because this law is there, it’s filling all the prisons. But it means that really if we don’t have the control of somebody, we are not free enough to know that we don’t have to kill, we are not free enough to know that we don’t have to steal. This freedom inside, in this mind, on this planet, is in a very few people that exist, that is, the people of the present. All the rest are still living in the past, using the power for corruption, it means you are still in the past but you use the tools of the present for your personal story. You imagine how much the human being is still a wild animal, you cannot control. If there is a blackout in a city for 2-3 days, it’s finished. All the shops are looted, try to understand, the wild in us is coming out. In the moment that I see a girl coming in the dark, and we are two-three, we go to rape, automatically. You imagine, even if they put the law, it shows me that really we are animals; but wild, wild animals completely.
So, evolution hasn’t happened yet…
Yeah, because each one of us is following, I don’t know what belief. They think that now through this I will be saved, I will save my soul, or I will reach Nirvana, or whatever.
What has been the biggest challenge in your work?
I only hope that I will have the possibility to work. I have really to struggle to be in the moment, to be in this state of mind, you know, I have to work for it. When I am in that point of creation, it means really that I was fighting to reach this point. Not fighting in the sense like fighting somebody, but trying to really enter into this possibility. Then it’s always a challenge somehow, it’s not easy. It means if you enter in a system how they want, for example, a painter should do exhibitions here and there if he wants to be a painter. You must follow certain rules to do something. If you don’t follow the rules, you are somehow an outsider, and you will be recognized only after death, you understand, you risk going into this category of people. That’s why if it’s possible that you work, that means it’s a good point. I am very happy for that, you know (Laughs)
That’s the joy in your life…
Yes, the joy is because, you know, the personal life of each one goes incredibly up and down, especially if you are in this story, it becomes more complicated. Otherwise, what do you do? Okay, you are in some city, but I don’t find the reason, no? Reason is there everywhere in the world where it’s possible that somebody can do something. All I want to say is – don’t be so complicated, trust it, give. There must be a possibility. It’s a kind of operation of sensibilisation, how do you say?
Sensitisation, sensitivity… Isn’t sensitivity, sensibility in Italian?
Sensibilisation, it means working to grow in sensibility. To have the sensibility of becoming a human being, become more fine. Then many, many things drop, this jealousy and everything, it’s because we are rough, no? And we need to refine ourselves a little bit. This is what Art is for actually. Because it comes from the ambient, and it gives to the ambient; from a lower level of human being to a higher level of human being. Art is very important for people in society because it gives this higher relation with people, it does not remain a very basic, rough relationship. Many things will disappear by themselves like violence, automatically. Not everybody is like that guy who was passing by and he got a moment of inspiration – Art is made for this. That is why people go to the museums; it’s not only to look . Also mathematics became more evolved, it became higher mathematics – this is the point. The challenge is this actually – be sensible. (Laughs) We open up ourselves – this is it. Open up ourselves, no fear, nothing.
When we came to India in the beginning, most of the people were like: you are you, and they are the others; the tribe is the tribe, this concept of tribal, that somebody else is a foreigner. How the world is now, this mind cannot be, you understand, it cannot be. We are one on this planet, completely, here. This planet belongs to us, each one follows what he wants. And you and you, you are the same. Only you decide to be this, and he decided to be that. But there is no difference. We are one on this planet; we work for us, for the planet. Now soon all the ice will melt, the planet will be… the tsunami goes anywhere, it does not look what place is this. We have to face all this together, no? All this is now the planet’s story, it’s no more this nation and that nation. Me, I belong to the world, I don’t belong to one nation. I don’t really feel I belong to Italy, because when I close my eyes, I cannot see Italy. I mean, its there, but where?
You are a multi-dimensional artist, from the Shiva sculpture to… Would you like to talk about your different projects, or your art?
Its not only one project, it is your life itself. This is the project of your life; there are not two, three, four projects. Dimensions there can be, even thousands… (Laughs) This is the project – to maintain the sense of creating. It’s not the exhibition of somebody in some gallery, that is only for business – I don’t give value to that. There can be, but I don’t give value to that, I never believed in that, actually. I never thought that is art, you know. Trying to work, and maintaining this, that this feeling is there – that’s all. All the rest comes together in the next project, which can be anywhere on this planet. Its there already, already there are projects, but they are closed in a box, in the sense, who knows that what we are creating is something that can have the impact, or can have the message, and only then you create… Much of my work got lost, and much of my work, I saw, remained unfinished. I started many projects that are just projects, but no realization happened. I don’t speak only for me, I know that for many people it’s like this also, especially creative people. They think a lot of artists are not under control, and so lets throw this away, and because we need to maintain the art, so what do we do? So we fix that art now is this – its already a society story, it does not belong anymore to art. Much of it goes afterwards into parallel branches that can be in fashion, or architecture, or interior decoration, or exterior decoration, or landscaping. It can go into anything, it is parallel, goes into different things. We see very well with Picasso, he took African art… Okay, now, if I can go in one tribe, where I see all this art full on, I would go crazy, you know. Picasso took this and he put it in his art, and sometimes it made it more horrible because there was no meaning why he was doing this. At least with the tribe, there was meaning around the art, on the clay surface with the white or relief of mud. And then Picasso took it, and we discovered African art through him, through Picasso, somehow.
Ah, really?
Yes, because otherwise the concept till the end of the century was this, that these are primitive people. The watching of certain things is of the new mind. When the Spanish arrived in South America, all that was there from the Incas and Mayans, all this incredible work – they fused everything, they melted it down. What they have now, is just because by mistake it remained buried under ground, and then they found these through archaeological expeditions Otherwise all that they were robbing in that moment was becoming just a piece of cold gold.
It’s strange how they always come and destroy beautiful art, like Khajuraho, and now the Bamiyan Buddhas…
That’s why I say, it’s now that we start to open the mind to others. But not all the time, because much of the time, still it’s in the old, trying to still maintain the old story. Like how much an issue there was in America about Barack Obama being white or black or… Try to imagine, for a long time in America, half of the Americans are black, and still you have issues like this, stories like this, whether he is white or not… This is the Middle Ages, and it is the mind of the people. Try to understand, to think about it, that the colour of the skin can make the difference…for me its really incredible, it’s too much. (Laughs) That’s what I was saying, take care that we are wild animals. I mean, be aware of it, that’s what I have to say (Laughs)
At least you should be aware…
Kazo! Be aware of it, how easy it is for you is to go into jealousy, to flip out when you see your wife… and you can go to kill, its easy. You can be the top doctor in some hospital, its not important who you are, try to understand, this is sensibility. The sensibility about everything, reaching one point and evolving into a higher man, a higher level. This does not belong to religion, it doesn’t belong to anything. And now it’s clear because we know about time, more than before. It’s very easy to go out. It’s very clear, and people can understand. That’s why now we have this mass movement of people, before this kind of thing did not exist, the pattern of the now, this thing of the now, before it was not possible to be. And many people, we are enjoying the moment.
As an artist, how do you promote yourself? How do people get to hear about you?
I don’t know nothing about it, I don’t know how… Okay, for the now, I am here.
How do people get to hear about you?
Its like I was saying before, we belong to a moment and things happen in the moment. And automatically like me, there are others. I mean, we live in contact with the present time vision. If somebody is feeling that he’s living really in the present, he’s there with us. Because you can see, its here and now, it means that somebody must be there, to be now, to be here. Then it means that you are not alone on an island, you are on this planet, you don’t need to know somebody else, its enough that you know that there are people of the present occupying the space of the present, because each time is a space, because its connected – space and time. There is actually one entity that is space-time, there is no space, there is no time. It’s this entity – space-time. The space of the present is occupied only by people living in the present. All the rest does not exist, because it does not occupy the space, it exists in another space. Then if I go in the 11th century, I will see the people who are occupying the 11th century space. The space on this planet is compared to time. Each one has the space of the time that he’s living in. It’s not only a question about time, because you see, we finally come to understand why time is there, and its relation also with space.
What do you love most about your work?
I love the part that when I do something, I lose myself on the way. Then when I am in the point that really there is full confusion there, there is a kind of ecstasy there. You are in the chaos, then you are completely lost. From that moment you start to come out of it, you come out of this chaos that you were creating. So, in the creation the chaos is there. This is very connected – creation and chaos. When you are in chaos, you are already half-way (Laughs) This is what I know. And then from that chaos, I come out slowly, slowly, I come out till one point that I can say, okay, something has come out. I love this, I love this ‘losing yourself’ in this. I know myself since I was very small that I was working, I recognized the sensation…
That space…
Exactly, for that actually I have to say I sacrificed, it’s not to say, but I sacrificed much for that to be…
What’s your story with India, how did she find you?
Traveling is expanding, one of the ways that you expand your memory. Just being in a place like India, it was coming in a flash where even the smell reminds me. In India they have a civilization; it means already they know first of all how to wash themselves, how to take care of themselves, just the basic things like cleaning the teeth, and all this. In Europe only just now all this is coming, you understand, it didn’t exist before. Who was washing teeth in their life, somewhere in England, for example, for thousands of years, or somewhere in France…who? Nobody. You were coming after a certain age with green teeth. This cleaning was not existing, the sense of cleaning – this came later with civilization. In India, you can see in the real things how civilization really started here, and after that spread; in the sense of knowledge of things, how to take care of your self, basics of medicine, how to survive. I mean, there was nothing anywhere. You see how people here are maintaining the simple life in nature, how they can have the possibility to be in nature. It’s an old civilization, and we don’t have this civilization, you know. Before in Europe, people were dying from epidemics every 10 years, the last epidemic was very, very strong – killed half of Europe in just the last century, half of Europe disappeared. I mean, even the concept of going to the toilet – the toilet was something just there, and then throwing it out on the road, not even looking if someone is down there.
Yeah?
Yes, yes, yes. They were throwing their shit just on the road, try to understand. If somebody was there just under – boom. There was no concept, and automatically it was full of epidemics and disease. It was really a problem, the cities full polluted. And then slowly, slowly they started to do the whole story.
And apart from that, you see that religion started in India. Not possible to be anywhere else. Everywhere else was only shamanism and tribal belief. Religion started to be religion for the first time in India. And religion, what is it? It is human being that started to evolve, that is really the first stage of religion – to be human. Before that religion was really, completely, animal, cannibal, there was no love between people. Then started to come religion – to give love.
What’s your story with India…?
Yes, when I was around 16, India was in fashion with the new generation of students, first time in Europe, because we were the first students, or children of the new era. Before this didn’t exist, my father was not obliged to go to school, only the rich went to school, it was not for everybody. All the rest were workers, working hard, without knowing how to read and write. And then with the 2nd world war, with the Republic, everybody had to go to school. In the 60’s mass schooling started for everybody, it became obligatory to go to school. Then automatically, we were the first generation of students, everybody… (Laughs) Ce, I must say, we were all of us students, no? It was something that you started to read, you started to know, you started to contact other people. Before this, it was not possible. You contacted only your neighbour, where you are working. And then many people contacted each other, and the information was spreading already, and we were thirsty for information, because we didn’t know anything, because we didn’t how know to read or write. This mass schooling was creating everything, it opened the mind. Imagine, when I was like in the second year or third year of schooling, 8-10 years old, my professor used to say, ”Ah, in India, they are starving because they refuse to eat the cows which are plenty.” For them, it really was something for laughing, because they didn’t understand that in India why they are starving, having so many cows to eat… (Laughs) Ce, my professor, capito? What I want to say, a new thing, a thing that never was before, was happening. Nothing was routine, everything was for the first time. Really, in the way how we are together, in the way how we act, which relations we have in between ourselves, you know, start to share things, breaking certain taboo about this and that… And slowly, slowly we came out of it. Society before was really blind. In the school, we started for the first time to fight against professors who were beating children, before there were the rules of the old school mentality, they used to beat students. To beat children in school was normal, punishing them, you know.
Somehow with children or somebody who is more vulnerable, people tend to crush them more… its strange.
Incredible, it’s incredible. But we did this, we did the change, we fought for it, you understand? It was changed completely. Now in the schools, there are groups of students who have the right themselves to talk about how is the story of the school, now they have power – the students. It changed, but we started all that, this I want to say. It was not like this before, many things were for the first time. That’s why I am very wild in work, you know, I am very wild. I discovered myself many systems for work, to use materials that before were not existing. In the way I use the marble, nobody was using the marble like this before, I find this for myself, and you don’t learn this in school.
Interview with Jungle, the Artist and Visionary
by Kamakshi
GateLessGate Magazine 