Baptist Coelho is a Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, for the year 2015-16. He is in Hyderabad to exhibit his installation Thread by Thread, based on an essay by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.
The exhibition curated by Monisha Ahmed reflects on the life in conflict zones. The main focus is the situation along the Siachen glacier which has always remained a point of conflict between India and Pakistan. This comes from Baptist Coelho’s deep interest in the lives and times of Indian soldiers and their families.
And about taking up art as a full-time profession, Coelho has a word of caution. “It’s always better for any youngster to have a “proper job in hand which can take care of life’s most basic needs. The process of an art journey needs patience and is sometimes painful. Even top performers are sometimes found endorsing products for nothing but commercial reasons. India will still take quite a while before we can see things like ‘Arts Councils’ emerging in a big way,” he says. His show opens on October 9, at the Goethe Zentrum from 6.30 pm.
The writer is a musician, creator of ‘Jaywant Guitar’and a freelance photographer
