The Creative Process: The Arts of War (Spring 2017)

The Creative Process
The piece is titled Balwan, which means strong and hearty in Hindi.
But by choosing a word that has a presence in both Urdu and Hindi,
languages spoken across the Indian subcontinent, Kausik ties this
piece back to the Indo-Pakistan conflict. The piece, therefore has
cross-border significance. Deprived of any indicator of nationality,
Kausik’s piece portrays the universality of war, built carefully behind
a façade of crudeness and simplicity. Sometimes, the soldiers are in
conflict with each other, and sometimes they aim into abstraction
with something. The piece presents this to remind viewers of the
recent nature of the Partition, for we still retain significant aspects
of culture that the Indian subcontinent espoused. The conflict
between the two, is therefore portrayed as fratricidal. Alluding to his
Mannerist predecessors, Kausik’s title is also emblazoned on the
outer wall of the tub in which the sculpture is contained, reading
“Balwan size.” Is one form of bravery better and bigger than any
other?
With Kausik’s piece, I find myself wrangling with the question of
agency. There is always the question of responsibility in war, for who
is truly responsible for the horrors of war, we do not know, and
probably will never know. This again brings up the question, Is art
inherently political? For Kausik, the forms that constitute art are
most definitely political. It is what the artist chooses to do with these
forms is what influences the nature of the end product. Art, as
Kausik sees it, has the potential to bring about social change, and it
is with this in mind that Kausik crafts a narrative through a piece
that lives as we breathe.
--
Ishaan Jajodia
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