Seeking social justice and transformation through art

Throughout history, art has played a vital role in social movements; visual and performing arts have oftentimes been used as mediums to advance social change and shed light on myriad issues in creative ways. Several global artists are committed to using art as a tool to create new forms of social practices that can engage communities. The Particle Collective (TPC) is one such group on home ground.

This collective of artists who hail from different parts of the country is on a mission to address our everyday realities through their artistic practice. The group—formed in July 2019—has initiated a series of projects, over the years, most of which are in response to themes of oppression, discrimination, and sustainability. “What brings us together is our ideology—we believe that art has great power to change, influence, and draw people to action,” shared Shruti (they/them), a founding member.

Power of collaboration
The founding members of TPC met each other while working on a theatrical production—the group, however, has expanded and now comprises about 16 members. After encountering a similar feeling of “disillusionment” from several injustices, they decided to channel their creativity into projects that can highlight socio-political issues and bring about change. 

This group functions as a multidisciplinary organisation—members of TPC include poets, writers, movement practitioners, and visual artists, among others, who collaborate together. To illustrate the organisation’s values and principles, one can look at the festival ‘Spirit of Africa’, which the Collective organised in 2019. The idea of this event was to draw attention to racist violence against people of African origin in India. “It was a way of familiarising the locals to the culturally-rich continent that Africa is.”

Striving for change
Central to TPC’s work is their attempt to keep their work discourse-oriented—they often create a conversation between the audience and the spectators. Using this approach, they focus on themes including gender, caste, the body as well as several issues that plague our day-to-day existence. Their ongoing project ‘Daana Daana Pitaara’—a collection of over 25 songs of resistance that the group performs at various events, the most recent one being at The Phosphene, an art exhibition that took place on Saturday at The Hosteller, New Friends Colony.

Art beyond boundaries
Apart from performances, the group also routinely collaborates with several organisations to conduct workshops and exhibitions around performance making, theatre, etc. TPC also recently won a grant, ‘Culture Over Coffee’, a joint initiative by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and Cambodian Living Arts (CLA). Through this, the Collective looks forward to creating dialogue around sustainability and the role that arts can play to bring focus on the same.