Photo Essay - Flower market in Madurai

Walking through a flower market almost anywhere in India is quite a fascinating experience.

There's sackfuls of flowers - the centre of all the trading activity between wholesalers and retailers.

You can buy them in kilos. They are picked up in handfuls and weighed in the most simple scales.

This flower market in Madurai is a relatively new construction, quite different in its ambience from a traditional flower market, which would often have a thatch or tiled roof and would invariably be in the centre of town. The old flower market which is now shut down was located close to the famous Meenakshi temple.











The loading and unloading of nature's bounty as people live their daily lives in prayer and in work.




The new brick and concrete construction offers spacious stall space and rooms for storage. The old market spaces had their own charm and organic planning.

I am including below a link to an article in the Times of India, June 24, 2012 on: Madurai flower market exploding in colours


Bazaar tours in India :
Bazaar Tour 1 : Dadar Flower Market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 2 : Antique market, Mumbai
Bazaar Tour 3 : Varkala, Kerala
Bazaar Tour 4 : Gandhi Bazaar, Bangalore

Art _ a way of life

An earlier post "Art & Representation" is about looking into a "painting".

One may read a little about why art is, what it does for man, why it still lives and so on. Understanding art can be a long quest. Experiencing a painting is also like reading Roald Dahl's "Charlie Wonka and the chocolate factory"

The painting 'Annunciation' is an assignment that was done for an elective course 'Architecture & Representation' at Cornell University, 15 years ago. Today, when you look at Bazaars, you know there is art there. It reminds one of the journey into the annunciation painting. You wonder why the Bazaar is not also "painting"

Many years ago, an american art historian who was in Bombay for her continuing research on the Elephanta Caves, asked us if we had seen and understood India the way we ought to know it, that "in India, one does not visit museums to see art, because, here, art is a way of life"

what we see, what we know

in the bazaar, space is ...
both
what we see
and what we know



it is not known
what is private
what is public
space is eternity




you sell, you buy
you occupy, you vacate
you give, you take
you include, you exclude



People come
People belong
People form society
Society within nation

All in the 'Everyday space'

an art installation

How did "art installations" come into being? Where was its birthplace?

What did an art installation do when it first appeared? What does it do for us now? Do renowned artists make art installations?




Is art for the common man? Does common man make art?







In the bazaar, "there are cities within cities" as they say. What is the smallest atom of this city? Is there a DNA helix also in the city of people and goods?

Art in everyday spaces

Art in everyday spaces
the first pure still-life
born out of need
to live, to grow












what we do
what we think
how we create
how we express

the Bazaar_its representation as Art

the painted painting
the photographed image
the designed space
the theatre AND the stage




it confronts us
not as immediate sight
but as experience

art transcends time
the bazaar is for the moment
a tangible aesthetic
in our intangible times
















"Space by itself
and time by itself
are doomed to fade away
into mere shadows"
- Hermann Minkowski













the bazaar
art, space, time or shadow