Perspectives: Artists on Art, Survival and Relief During the Pandemic

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated India. As the rage of the virus ebbs and f lows, the artist community weighs in on the triumph and toll of art

For as long as we can remember, art has been a witness to history. Whether through a children’s nursery rhyme on devastating plagues (“Ring a Ring o’ Roses”), poems that encompassed a citizens movement (Faiz’s “Hum Dekhenge”) or songs that documented climate change (Swadesi’s “The Warli Revolt”), artists have been the recorders and chroniclers of humanity’s triumphs and travails. As we collectively grapple with a difficult period, in the midst of the raging second wave of the COVID19 pandemic, we turned to artists to ask them about how they now view their art. Lending their perspectives, veteran rockers Uday Benegal and Bruce Lee Mani, pop artist Mali, fusion musician Bryden Lewis, singer-songwriters Nikhil D’souza and Vernon Noronha, as well as Spotify India’s Vasundhara Mudgil, actor Ruhi Singh and digital creators Vaishnavi Naik and Vishal Pandey, stitch a telling tapestry of the times to unveil the price and power of art during the pandemic. Read below.

Last year, there was plenty of chat about “art healing” people with regards to the pandemic and how everyone at home relied on art to keep going. With how the situation is this year, even worse so than last year, from an artist’s perspective, do you think “art can heal us” right now”?