being korou:

(unrealised! realised at last! anyways it makes perfectly no sense quit!*)

Born in the so called ‘terror’ infected, chaos ridden, pleasant smelling State of Manipur, I was always accompanied with a certain perplexity concerning identity and the ideal. I started questioning the ‘reality’ and purposefulness of our existence since early age. And this has been the driving force of my very life. Art has been like a laboratory where I perform my own personal experiments with truth. Art being a medium, a very apt one at that for me, not only for expression but the very process of synthesis of many of my notions on existence, I started on my quest for the answers to my questions. The most important question being, is my quest even valid?
Having led by my own intrinsic affinity to the visual art, I moved ahead in that direction. However as I questioned the established structure of the art practice I realize the absurdity of the situation. An impasse in which art is enjoyed by only a small elite class. And I started thinking of ways to steer art away from the elitist structure of the present in my own way, towards a more meaningful practice wherein the purpose of the act is fulfilled.
This stand of mine was enhanced considerably by a recent involvement in the publication of a book written by my father. I could not help drawing analogies between the two very refined communicative medium of literature and visual art. An interesting point to be noted here is how literature too was enjoyed by the select privileged few. But the advent of technology brought the printing press which revolutionized the way humanity experience literature. The printing press, along with advanced modes of publication, made it possible for the whole humanity to experience the beauty of literature and instill it in their lives. However, unfortunately visual art didn’t see such days. The very basis of evaluation and perhaps appreciation of visual art is based on an induced scarcity. We have to question the established association of value with scarcity.
Having spent four years of the BFA course mainly in exploring the possibilities of the medium of visual art, I wish to focus on the application of all the knowledge I acquired on understanding and analyzing the potentials of the relation of art with the other facets of human existence. And perhaps see in what ways art can contribute in solving (but first of all understanding the nature of) the varied prevalent modern existential dilemmas. In order to achieve this, I believe we must first bring art out of the “white cube” and into the lives of the people and build a circumstance wherein art is freed from the elitist structure and restore its purpose of communicativeness.
During the MFA program, I would like to experiment with the various techniques made available with technology without compromising the artistic integrity of my works. Moreover I would like to research on; and experiment with radical ways of exhibiting and “publishing” art, the prime motive being to bring art closer to the public and bring about an intimate inter-involvement between the artist and his/her audience.
Thematically, (in fact very related to the technical aspect of my work) I would like to focus on the nature of existence – human and otherwise. Examining the nature of existence both from an anthropological scale and from a very intimately individual point of view. It would be an endeavor to decipher the puzzles of the nature of reality in my own small way.

Korou Khundrakpam

*(updated: 15-12-09)