The Sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

68 Minam Apang Tales from the deep Minam Apang’s ‘War with the stars’ series of drawings is inspired by a folktale recorded in Verrier Elwin’s 1958 book Myths of the North- East Frontier of India . It visually retells a creation myth similar to those that Apang heard as a child in her grandmother’s house, and through participating in rituals led by her shaman aunt. 1 The story describes how fish and amphibians were created: the water dwellers are at war with the stars, and during their unending battle climb upwards onto rocks, but are set upon by the stars’ arrows. Those who can’t escape are gashed and grazed by the arrows, which explains the fish’s gills. In Apang’s work The sleeping army may stir 2008, delicately drawn fish swarm in inky waters, ready to rise against the stars. The Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh is a region of mountains and valleys bordered to the north, west and east by Tibet, Bhutan and Myanmar, respectively. It was isolated from direct external influence until the mid 1900s, when it became the North-East Frontier of British India. 2 Elwin, an ex-Anglican missionary and anthropologist, served as an adviser on tribal affairs in the north-east to India’s Prime Minister Nehru, after the country attained independence in 1947. Advocating a policy of isolationism to preserve the traditions of the area’s many tribal groups, Elwin devoted much of his career to recording their animist beliefs, expressed in myth and song. Without such recording, many of these tales would have disappeared, as most Arunachal tribes have no indigenous form of written language. 3 Until relatively recently, foreigners were forbidden from entering Arunachal and tribal life continued unchanged. However, the influence of missionary activity, as well as the inevitable infiltration of tourists and technology, has meant that Apang’s generation is not defined by cultural and social isolation. Educated at a Christian boarding school in Uttarakhand, Apang was distanced from her family’s tribal traditions from a young age. Her description of her childhood sounds not unlike those of children the world over: I grew up watching lots of films . . . I enjoyed everything from the regional matinees on [public TV broadcaster] Doordarshan, Bollywood, Hollywood, to tacky action/horror films . . . We grew up reading lots of comics. 4 Further education in Chicago, Leeds and Mumbai gave Apang a sense of being ‘at home’ and viewing the concept of national or even tribal identity askance: Although I live in India there is nothing in my work that may be seen as being distinctly Indian or Adi (the tribe which my family belongs to in AP), nor do I feel like I’m part of any one identity but maybe a part of the many spaces/identities that I have come to occupy. 5 In north-east Indian folktales, the role of the storyteller is often assumed by a bat, an ambiguous trickster figure. The bat is the central form in He wore them like talismans all over his body 2008, and appears again lying at the bottom of a deep lake surrounded by craggy mountains in Apang’s most recent work, Nothing of him doth fade 2009. The lake also contains a shipwreck swarming with divers, sharks, ghostly figures and sea creatures — echoing characters in both folktales and contemporary comic books. Apang has worked the paper into three-dimensional peaks and troughs, held in tension by a web of threads, creating a hybrid sculptural drawing. Repeated layering of ink and acrylic has rendered the paper’s surface almost burnished, tanned like an animal’s hide. He wore them like talismans all over his body is not based on a story from Arunachal, but from Ecuador (‘The lake at the end of the world’), demonstrating Apang’s access to a universal repertoire of folktales. Describing the dark figure of the bat, Apang says: This bat is ambiguous: I don’t know if it is dead or if it’s just asleep; if it’s a real bat, a shadow or just an illusion. I don’t know if it’s a friend or an enemy. I don’t quite know if the scene signifies a beginning or an end. 6 Minam Apang’s distance from the traditions of her birthplace, and her ability to draw from a vast archive of global folktales, means that she occupies the role of storyteller with some hesitation. Like the lake at the end of the world, her drawings are ultimately opaque, suggesting uncharted depths. Miranda Wallace Endnotes 1 Verrier Elwin, Myths of the North-East Frontier of India , North East Frontier Agency, Shillong, 1958, p.313. 2 The area of present-day Arunachal Pradesh formed part of the North-East Frontier Tracts of Assam during the colonial period; in 1954, it became part of the North-East Frontier Agency, in 1972 a union territory, and in 1987 a state. See Government of Arunachal Pradesh, <http://arunachalpradesh.nic.in/govt.htm >, viewed 11 October 2009. 3 In this essay, the use of the term ‘tribe’, considered by many as ethnographically imprecise and historically constructed, is used in the manner in which it is found in much of the writing on and by people of the region. As the British academic Stuart Blackburn has noted: ‘although in most of India the term is politicised and controversial . . . in Arunachal Pradesh, where tribes predominate, the term may be politicised but it is not controversial and is often used with pride’. Stuart Blackburn, ‘Colonial contact in the “hidden land”: Oral history among the Apatanis of Arunachal Pradesh’, 2003, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, <http://www.soas.ac.uk/tribaltransitions/publications/file32488.pdf >, viewed 11 October 2009. 4 Amrita Gupta Singh, ‘Living to tell a tale: Interview with Minam Apang’, Art Concerns, <http://www.artconcerns.net/2008november/html/interview1_living_to_ TellATale.htm>, viewed 8 October 2009. 5 Minam Apang, email to the author, 9 October 2009. 6 Apang, email to the author.