Masks that transforms

The world of mask opened up in an incredible way in Sri Lanka and I thought the power in which masks could work with archetypes was incredible. The world of masks is the world of containers that contain the sorrow; the pain projects an image to the group that reflects back the pain of the world. How does this happen? Like puppets, masks are made of dead materials. The dead materials comprise of paper, newspapers, coloured paper, streamers, theramocol etc. This mask is a suggestion to the person the world of darkness as one puts the mask on the face, the facilitator plays the music, and that is when the safety of the darkness also becomes the inner world of conflict.

The body moves and the pain strangles within our world and in it the self expresses. In Sri Lanka the arts based approach towards mental health can describe the conflicted world of South Asia without threatening the individuals towards articulating difficult experiences.

In Sri Lanka the Tamil and the Sri Lankans were present to this conflict and the world that could be disclosed may have been threatening. The world of metaphors and masks then contain the pain and the stories that emerge need not be sugar coated or expressed in all its brutality but it also can be contained by the masks, the puppets and the metaphors. This was clearly visible as the seven days worked with a clear design around metaphors, symbols and signs proceeded towards personal insights .  Let’s explain the phenomenon with what actually happened in Kandy where the experience took place.  It was an amazing experience that allowed the symbols and metaphors that articulated the inner world of the participants and their sorrows, and it  went beyond catharsis , it goes to become a container and a space from where deep reflection can take place . So we looked at the masks to represent the four quadrant of suffering as a path way to the inner world .

The idea of the mask represents the expression of the four quadrant of suffering and that is how it was explained and introduced to the participants. The four quadrant of suffering are oppressor /oppressed the wound of loss, the wound of inadequacy,and the wound of inauthenticity. The participant had to express the personal suffering without words. the masks are also a suggestion that suffering can also betaken off as suffering can also be shed .

For example three masks were kept in the centre of the room. The masks are made brown paper and the masks do not denote any expression except that that they form a human face. They were kept on the floor with a red cloth around it. They were used with background music for creating/facilitating a certain mood; and drums to express the suffering of the four quadrants. The participants could use all the three masks with the red cloth covering their head; they could use the other two masks on their hands. They could swirl around using the mask, dance, do movements and the muffled sound would be expression of the pain. The performance of pain would be as much as the individual wanted to prolong with the  performance. The mask because of its neutrality and being the cover becomes the container of the participant’s pain. The mask itself lying on the ground with lit candles evoked a reaction from the participant’s. They all watched it on the floor with fascination. It became a projection of one’s mind. Some said the masks are alive and that they are moving.

One also said the masks are alive and they are talking to me. It could bring an expression of the pain because of its human resemblance and it being dead only brought alive with human expression.

There were certain participants who did not venture out to express themselves. There were certain people who cried and cried within the mask as it later was soggy, with the tears. once the performance was over, the audience watching had to say statements starting with ‘I’ to express what they saw like ‘I have gone through a lot of struggle and now I am alive’. The stating of the unstated brings out unexpressed aspects of the individual sitting in the audience. It allows the participant’s to observe and express their own feelings and this projection is contained by the masked performance. This is what happened; there was a continuous collective expression of pain. All through this simulation by performance and observation were included in this creative expression of nonverbal, physical movement of suffering. There was a collective huddle of expression of sound by all the participants. The participants gathered around and evoked a sound which was beautiful and tender. 

The four quadrants of suffering and the four false refuge were later explained. The false refuges are religion, work, sexuality (relationship), and intoxication; it was clarified that the tendency would then be to take false refuges like the mask of the warrior, the lover, the visionary, the ascetic, the hermit, the seeker, the orphan/teacher. In order to illustrate the mask making with the refuges we got the participants in the next round of exercise's  to make their own masks of these four heroes who are also connected to the four forms of suffering. 

Mask making- With dead material, objects, thick paper, four masks are made, which are decorated with various materials collected from the outside. The four masks are the four heroes.The four archetypes that make us survive, the pain, the suffering, the heroes that give us the gifts. Keeping this in mind, the masks were made. The making of the four masks using cardboard, using paper, using objects from nature, going out and catching shadow on paper, and then cutting out the patterns and placing it on the mask was all a part of the healing process. They are the archetypes which evoke the will of going through the suffering that makes the individuals plough through the suffering. Through manoeuvring's and exploring with the masks, we enter with the masks into the four spaces and dance in each space of the quadrant collectively. Understanding the relationship the quadrant has with the mask; understanding one’s own connection with the mask and activating it, making it real.

The use of mask in this therapeutic process brings about choosing pain and the conscious process of choosing the archetype of being a hero (a dynamic agency, a risk taker, a path). Each of these types have their wounds within them which was hidden from the participant .  The warrior has the wound of the oppressor /oppressed, the visionary has the wound of inauthenticity , the healer has the wound of loss, and the teacher /student has the wound of inadequacy. The process that began with dead material led to a process of exploration and eventual transformation. The journey was the movement from the house of suffering to the house of gifts given and received with the understanding of this journey . 

The history of the edge

The history on this edge called valley or paradise is all about paradise interrupted because of a
historical transmission of pain. It’s a place where the understanding of PTDSD is rarely understood
by the oppressive structures and the victims themselves. The switch often takes place when the
victim can become the oppressor, and the oppressor can become the victim. The rescuer who come
in form of social workers, helpers can easily be swamped by the victim because the rescuer is often
trying to rescue its own victim. So that’s why children are given stones to throw at the CRPF , J & K police the governmental authorities so that this rage is focused on the fight mechanism and a whole society is eroded by the erosion of its children . The teachers might be oppressive in class, the strikes break daily life, and children search for the face of the oppressor now in uniforms, authority figure and play the game ”catch me if you can “ . The cat and mouse game where both are not ok, and this game is who can go the closest and hit out at the governmental vans.

So life in this disputed, and controversial land in the state of India is a life of continuous interruption.
The historical trauma of the past continuous its life script of not being ok, both I am not ok and you
are not ok. The self and the other mirror each other. So a dog entered a hall of mirrors and thought it saw all dogs there and started barking. The dogs in the mirror barked back and this bark continued all night. Till the dog died and all the voices died with him. The sufi story illustrates the state of constant barking at mirrors. So here what can the artist worker do, as it easily can become a rescuer, despite knowing it intellectually in action the state of rupture brings the compulsive need to help but not heed the voice of discernment and a process of untangled involvement , that which is the birthplace of compassion .

Rupture in Paradise- Kashmir

The idea behind a small intervention of working with the teachers in Srinagar and elsewhere in Kashmir and the students was to dialogue on the gap between a teacher and a student. However the idea behind this intervention was that there had to be an understanding of trauma. Trauma that shapes our lives, our brains and our bodies, in such a way that it breaks down our engagements with the world in a healthy way.

The political situation in Kashmir is that of an on-going conflict. However in a conflict zone it is not only the conflict in the external world but a deep conflicting space between the body and the mind appears. The four days’ workshop from the 16^th first piloted workshop to assess the needs of children and teachers that there is a “Rupture” that is a strong part of the mechanisms of the daily going on in this disturbed state. The small intervention with teachers and students from various schools was done with the help of child line and the Shehjar theatre group of Help foundation Srinagar.

 So between the Bandhs and the exams that take place in schools , the four days did take place with the two days with the children we visited two schools and with one class that was the 8^th and that there was another school where almost the entire school arrived for the session. Here in both the classes we looked at the mechanism of trauma and how it affects our bodies and minds. It was what we saw was the substance of endurance and exhaustion among the staff and the children being engaged with tools of release.

So we conducted trust walk with teachers and another exercise was “I can make you do anything I want“. To bring out notions of “power with you “and power over you”. The trigger was to bring out the relationship between the teacher and the student, to work out or re – work relationship between a teacher and a student. As psychological violence and developmental trauma becomes a space of fear ridden classroom. So can the child be without fear? Teachers as they have been taught, can they do otherwise! Can they teach with power, with guidance? In a state ridden with conflict the violence in classroom brings students to become edgy. This unrest leads to the flight or the fight syndrome. Violence begets violence and trauma begets trauma.

The Trust walk: The teachers are made into pairs and one leads the other into the unknown blindfolded and gets them to feel different areas of the environment through touch. The pairs both get opportunity to lead and to be lead. The trigger words which came out of these walks the ones who were holding the hand were -help, road, to show path, guide, feel, sympathy /empathy, care, comfort, satisfaction, hope, ones, joy, responsibility {the ability to respond). The triggers from the ones who were being guided are being helpless, uneasy, weak, dependent, incapable, alone, fear, uncomfortable, trust, childhood, happiness as one was going back to childhood; power over you;  bossed about by one individual. The ones who were tossed about felt- Helpless! Sadness, compulsory, fear, hesitation, angry, incapable, enjoy the revenge. The ones who bossed felt- Revenge, superior, dominated, a hatred , thought of revenge. The relationship with the teacher and the student when it is a power with you, it is all that! The outcome of the trust walk, power with you. When it is power over you, being bossed about it is all the relationship and the feelings which comes about being tossed about… that is the latter feelings. All teachers felt that they have experienced being bossed over in the childhood and that’s what they transmit.

All the teachers have a childhood: Exploring childhood and the power situations within their childhood.
What did you love doing which you were not allowed to do and what was that thing which you did not want to do but had to do? Answers were: I wanted to take up arts, forced to do science, I want to take up business but was forced to do engineering , I wanted to take up religious studies but were forced to take up business , I want to do fashion but I was made to study and got married off, I want to take up science but was forced to take up arts .

So it’s the history of dreams crushed! It’s the dreams crushed by the teachers, parents and that the teachers do the same with their children and the children in the classroom. Pain when not transformed gets transmitted!

The Artist worker- Punjab

So a small village in Punjab after many years of wandering with my wares. A simple five days brought vitality and joy to 38 children in a government school in a small village in Khanpur Punjab, Nava Shaher district .

How did that happen? How did the creative arts with drawing, bit of drama, bit of games, loads of laughter brought in so much of joy . The idea that something like this could happen out of the blue with these children who come from these so called backward classes in India must seem extraordinary to me as well as them. It’s about the idea that there is someone outside their world could come and care for these children and to me that somewhere there they were waiting for me.

These bring about certain reflective question about my identity and role. So am I teacher, perhaps yes, am I an artist, perhaps yes definitely paint a bit. Do something artistic; direct a play once in a while. Then am I a development worker, was yes for a bit. So with all these multiple identities, how does one integrate oneself as what? A healer with the arts, how does that explain itself, a trainer with the arts, how does one explain oneself. So how does a thing like reveal itself? Perhaps it reveals itself as an artist worker. Who is the artist worker, he works with creative arts and works with all human beings, such as children, men, women, different communities.

This is a opportunity for people to belong to the medium of expression, to belong to the community. From the fringe of one’s own existence to celebrate, to bring about a sense of joy, an idea to fruition, a skill to be harnessed. A hope to be born, visions to be build. Metaphors to be created. The artist bring life to the canvas, the artist brings joy to itself or unhappiness depending on the creative reflection of colours . However the artist worker is a facilitator of the arts among various communities, it’s a poser of questions that trigger the imagination. However painful can be this journey of self-realization the human emotions are the things we work with and with themes that operate like metaphors organizing our self’s into a re alignment of our senses. The senses which are programmed to a certain kind of existence. A existence which could be suffering or a stagnant reality.

In Khanpur things were dead, the children’s voices did not leave the walls of the school yard to trail anywhere outside. The large houses all shut up , the children of low caste wandering in the shadows of these havelis that light up no charm , no incense of delight . These empty buildings make it seem like a ghost town. So in this small village of rich Punjab, working with the Dalit population, the idea was to infuse the idea of creation, to do funky stuff, to spark a light.

To get them to share the space of creation, to be in charge of something, to go beyond the culture of domination, to be revitalised. This is exactly what happened. I leave with this powerful feeling of sharing gifts; but nothing like working with children and give them sheer excitement and joy. To see their vulnerability getting expressed and fill up with great enthusiasm. The work of the artist worker is established when such things happen like a connection with the self and the world , the medium of life , the ability to organise oneself , to become a thinking person .

The idea of working with 7 billion population seems difficult but let’s start somewhere with 38 children in a tiny dot of a village in one school. So I started , the opportunity which never got from my parents to study the arts, over the years have funded myself and will use it to show the efficacy of the arts so that it becomes known that art is not only purposeful but its Tran sportive ability is transformative in nature .

So perhaps the artist worker deals with the art of transforming human beings. The colors’ re work the senses that are programmed in a particular way , re assess life’s ways that are set in a particular ways , and this allows reflection to take place which alters mind sets , patterns , and brings about new energy in the hearts of those who are willing to dive into the world the artist worker facilitates.

The edge -Manipur

It’s a space so quiet that only the fires in the evening crackle as the blue light of the dust mingles with a slight wet evening . The school wakes me up from the slumber, and makes me tackle the repressed children of the paite a tribe of the southern town of Manipur lamka .The official religion of this tribe is Protestant ethic.

In Churachandpur the most interesting thing is that Manipur is a state of India being landlocked from three sides is actually a place where you can only fly in which makes this land very disconnected from mainstream India. This makes it remote and south- East Asian in flavour. The children are brown and oriental looking. They are quiet but they observe very intently. The work is a lot to do with their inner world. it’s a interaction with the inner world through the arts which makes things dynamic despite a long drawn primitive notions of god which appear more, like a grand - father who suddenly decides whether they need to live , die or be punished .

The world of the children live in this constant fear of hell often resort later on to militant violence, drugs, alcohol , suicide , thus bringing all their fear of going to hell right into their life’s as a self-fulfilling prophecy . The work therefore is a work of creating a pathway from death, punishment, ghosts into a world of inner safety . The warrior was a metaphor for courage and the inner child was a symbol of innocence and ok-ness (sense of I am OK). Taking from Eric Berne’s transactional analysis, it’s time to say that all of us are born ok. So the inner child is ok and all the little children don’t be scared because you can put yourself in a ok space, a safe space. Bring affirmation and strokes on to yourself that would remove your sense of not being ok for a tiny bit.

The work shop with artistic processes was simply that, a simple understanding of the self. The child ego the figure of spontaneity, and playfulness being caged in the space of utter obedience or else.

The edge is therefore created by the norms of a place that pushes people in many double binds , the bind of state perched on the edge of a vast nation that is so diverse having an incredible diversity and many kingdoms within it . The other bind is belonging to a tribe with a religion that speaks more of fear and control than of love which is the essence of Christianity and the Sermon on the Mount.

The arts attempts to create pathways into this inner world bringing a journey a movement into the self. Then it’s through this self we can understand the other. The spaces of inner war and outer war are all mirrors of each other. The children who fear death, hell, and damnation and depict suicides are saying something loud through their silence.

The teachers who have gone through ethnic clashes who struggle with social stigma, and the community dictating terms to them, live with deep fear. It’s understood that a human being is both fragile and resilient and this is understood that when we stand on that edge we can expand, shrink or simply fall of off. The artist worker simply engages with the edges, and also his/her own edge.

She/he works with creative processes to engage, to care , to walk the emotional pathway so that the edge can be a space of transformation and not a space of transmission . So the journey gets set through exercises like ghost and warrior’s, inner child, and safe spaces .The journey from the transmission of pain to the transformation of pain. From the processes of pain to a possibility. The possibility of being happy and to be in-charge. The work from the edges of all sorts is to take charge to be willing, and willful, and finally to become useful.

Notes on the edges

It is important to know what is meant by an edge before we start writing notes from it. So the edge is a space of the liminal. It’s a space where the margins come in to define society or our mindscapes. It’s a space where all the beings feel vulnerable and a transaction takes place with the world or with what we know as society through an exchange.

This exchange within the individual, the community on the margins of psycho-social spaces brings about a script depending on who the population is and what do the population need and transact in order to cope on to live on the edge; If children who have run away and lived in the juvenile homes, street shelters they would form the script of the street. The transgendered population would be having scripts of Risqué comedy –tragedy. The sad clowns that martyr themselves on their fragmented reality in order to be simply be accepted. The communities that live on the edge of a country, or the sea where war , ethnic clashes or typhoons devastate their life’s and they have to live on that edge and a script of life emerges from these life positions .

The post conflict states like Punjab in India are often infested with drugs, alcoholism and crimes. The people who live in such Desolated psychological spaces have their own scripts . The journey of trauma in our nervous system is almost unforgiving when it comes to children who have gone through physical abuse and sexual abuse. This is how the edge gets created and like any borders its not fixed as communities and groups however much they desire to be fixed are nebulous . A state like kashmir where there are thousands of soldiers posted and are armed give a constant feeling of terror .

The dark small towns of Manipur ridden with underground groups where extortion is always going on, drug infested landscapes blooms among the youth . From the borders of Pakistan and Burma and from the tamil plantation workers in Sri Lanka . From the sex workers children in Bombay and Calcutta, to the children with learning disability in a posh school . I have worked with all of them using the creative arts .

I have worked with their scripts and life positions. The blog notes on the edges is about this engagement and the work on the borders , for it is on the borders can transformation takes places , it’s here where the borders can shrink or expand . It like this, the forest is on the edge of the village or city, when the city expands through transformation the forest shrinks, and when the forest expands the city would shrink. It’s the displacement of the psychological and social boundaries that lends itself to social suffering. The artist reflects this changing landscape and the social worker serves in these spaces and the artist worker like me does both serves and mirrors , facilitates the communities both nebulous and fixed to reflect, act and serve each other through creative tools.