S Jayakrishnan

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will create a multimedia installation using the forgotten Tamil subaltern literary and music genre Gujili Paatu of Madras from the early 20th Century, and classical Sangam literature. Drawing from the real-life incidents reported in newspapers, government reports, interviews, and journals, the project will examine the undertext that connects Sangam literature, Gujili Paatu and contemporary literary and artistic expressions to trace the continuum of the theme of love in Tamil cultural traditions. S Jayakrishnan is the Project Coordinator for this Project. 

S Jayakrishnan is a filmmaker and media artist who combines moving images, photography, animation, documentary and fiction in an experimental fashion. He received his education from the University of Madras, Chennai, the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, and Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany. The idea of making art based on Tamil Sangam landscapes has been central to his work for quite some time. Previously, he made a short film based on one of the Sangam landscapes, Palai, supported by IFA. Jayakrishnan’s artistic engagement with Sangam literature and contextualising it within the contemporary context makes him a suitable Coordinator for this Foundation Project by IFA. Chennai-based actor and writer Kalieaswari Srinivasan will join him as the collaborator for this project. 

Gujili Paatu, a subaltern music and literary genre, existed from the mid-19th century to the 1950s in the then city of Madras, now Chennai. The printed Gujili song books were sold in the Gujili Market in George Town – from where the genre got its name. They occupied people’s imaginations before the advent of radio and cinema. They were printed on cheap paper without editorial input for quick sales and consumption. The themes of Gujili songs had a wide spectrum and included news from mundane events of life to the bombing of Madras by the German SMS Emden ship during World War I. It efficiently converted the information into a simple poetic form to be memorised, recited and sung. The project intends to understand how Gujili songs were written and performed to explore the continuum of the theme of love in the Tamil literary tradition from Sangam literature to contemporary artistic expressions.  

This project will focus on the stories of five women longing for love in their respective ways. The stories will be contextualised within patriarchal structures that curtail women’s freedom in society. These stories will be seen through the prism of Sangam poems performed in the Gujili style. The stories will be drawn from newspapers, government reports, interviews and journals and performed as Living News Paper, a theatrical form in which social issues and current events are dramatised to prompt action. 

The outcome of this project will be a multimedia installation based on five actual incidents that have taken place in the last ten years in the form of Gujili Paatu with the visual interpretation of the Sangam landscapes. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with final reports, will be a copy of the installation in the form of an experimental film. 

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Research programme as it attempts to combine one forgotten literary tradition and another much celebrated one to bring them to contemporary audiences in an experimental manner. 

IFA will ensure that the project is implemented on time and that the funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is complete and deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with the Trustees.

This project is made possible with support from BNP Paribas India.