Thaindian News

Bangalore, Nov 27 (IANS) It was an unusual gathering in this tech hub, organised perhaps for the first time in India but which went almost unnoticed though the discussions centred around a hotly debated issue across the globe - climate change.

There were no power point presentations or reading out of papers but free-wheeling picking of brains among the 50 participants - 25 artists, many from abroad, and 25 scientists - earlier this month.

“We tend to shun presentation of papers as the main purpose of the event is to engender deep proactive conversations between artists and scientists,” Angela McSherry, art producer with London-based TippingPoint, which organised the meet along with Delhi-based Khoj International Artists’ Assocation, told IANS.

“The event was based on an open space model where participants propose their own agendas for discussion under the larger umbrella of climate change, and collaborations between art and science,” said Pooja Sood, director of Khoj International Artists’ Association.

“Artists from all art forms and scientists from a range of disciplines ranging from vascular surgeons to climate modellers to philosophers to physicists to energy specialists” attended the two-day event, McSherry said.

The discussions did not produce any conclusions as the event was meant “to broker the early hours of these new conversations. Following the event, the participants agreed they would like to continue to meet and talk and see what emerges”, she said.

TippingPoint, whose aim is “energising the creative response to climate change”, has organised similar meetings in Australia, US and Germany.

McSherry said: “India is a critical country in the climate change debate. We have been developing this project over 18 months.”

Regarding plans to make it an annual event, she said “our aim is that participants become a self-organising group and we have every confidence that this will be the case in India”.

The objective of organising a meeting between artists and scientists, Sood of Khoj said, was to reduce the “critical gap” between scientific knowledge and concern on the one hand and understanding and action by wider society on the other.

The participation of key scientific institutions and artists can “provide a stimulating spring board from which artist/scientist collaborations can begin their journey to fruition to create new work that will reach across India and beyond”, Sood said.

She said such events “provide a rare opportunity to step outside day-to-day work and engage with innovative peers from across many disciplines”.

Sood said so far they had not approached either the central government or any state government with suggestions on climate change. “However, we do hope to impact policy,” she said.

The participants included astrophysicist Dipanka Banerjee, an active member of theatre group “Enad”; Vikram Iyenger, Kathak dancer, choreographer and theatre director; Rajesh Kasturirangan, mathematician turned cognitive scientist and philosopher; Anil Kulkarni, visiting scientist at Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, among others.