The Kabir Project
My journey with the project started as a student in 2004 as an apprentice to Shabnam Virmani and continue to be a part of the core team as the lead visual designer and camera person. I find joy in keeping the company of singers and seekers and so the some 15 years later the journey continues...
The Kabir Project in its early years brought together the experiences of a series of ongoing journeys in quest of Kabir the 15th century north Indian mystic poet in the form of a series of documentary films and music CDs accompanied with illustrated poetry books. This led us to then travel with singers and organize a wave of festivals and village Yatras and workshops. Our research and documentation continued in the form immersive repertoire recordings and fresh research on other Bhakti and Sufi poets in our contemporary worlds.
Most recently the teams efforts have gone into creating an online archive that offers all the gems we had collected in an accessible, immersive and lyrical online platform. Our current obsession has been, the making of www.AjabShahar.org
Links to some works from the project: Film: The Journey Home | Documentation: Rooh ji Rehaan | Poetry Books
Songs: Kichhu Din Mone Mone | Bhajan Ro Gudak Rahyo Gaado | Bhajo Re Bhaiya
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Evocations of ‘Shabd’
Artworks and Animations made for the Museum of Sacred Art (MOSA)
by Smriti Chanchani & Shabnam Virmani
The 3 panel photo artworks illustrate this poem that invites us to reflect on the nature and mystery of Shabd or the 'Word'.
Where does the Word arise?
Tell me, where does it go?
It has no hands or feet
Can one catch it or no?
From the navel-lotus it rises
Into emptiness it goes
It has no hands or feet
Awareness can catch its flow
How can one evoke the elusive experience of Shabd, the Word? In traditions of nirgun bhakti (devotion toward the formless), the Word signifies sound, that subtle 'unstruck sound' which echoes in the universe and in bodies of seekers alike. In the oral traditions, which have carried bhakti poetry for centuries in a flowing stream of Shabd, the experience of word and sound comes to life in moments of orality in the bodies of singers, dancers, listeners and seekers.
Minds Die, Affections Die (MoSA)
This 'ajab poem' evokes a widely quoted couplet by the poet Kabir, and is one of a series of 'ajab' (wondrous) poem animations being created for Ajab Shahar.
Concept: Smriti Chanchani & Shabnam Virmani Artworks: Smriti Chanchani | Animation: M M Pradeep | Sound Design: Shruti Kulkarni & Smriti Chanchani | Collection: Kabir Project | Year: 2015
Kabir Wall Art Project
This was a two-week course I conducted with design students at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology. Students started with an immersion in the music and philosophy of mystic poets of the bhakti, sufi and baul traditions, and then went on to create poetry inspired - wall art across Bangalore, inviting passersby to pause for a moment in the midst of their hurried city lives.
