Image credit - Souvid Datta
Silent Spaces, available to stream on YouTube, sees Soumik Datta and a diverse community of musicians and dancers, reclaim iconic cultural spaces, performance halls and museums, left empty and bereft during the pandemic — including The Royal Albert Hall, British Museum and King’s Cross Station in London — and fill them with new music, dance and hope. The resulting six films explore resonant themes in keeping with the choice of venue, confronting issues around mental health, activism, the environment, colonisation and identity.
In conversation with Soumik below:
What was the starting point for Silent Spaces?
Briefly between the two lockdowns of 2020, London eased its restrictions. Like many others, I took the tube into Central London, curious to witness this new world. It looked like a scene from I Am Legend. Restaurants were shut. Bars empty. Overgrown hedges had burst through fences. Traffic lights blinked listlessly. But what struck me most was the silence.
Without the noise of engines, electricals, voices and footsteps, I could suddenly hear the river, the wind and the melody of leaves rustling. Beyond silence, something else had awoken. The seeds of an idea were in the air. As I walked past one of London’s biggest music venues, I stopped to peer through the dusty glass doors. This was a space that was never meant to be silent, a space to celebrate union, break barriers and share messages of hope. I wondered then if I could unlock this door, if I could return with a team of artists and break the silence of this building through song. This was the start of what became an eight-month journey, resulting in a collaborative team of 40 musicians and dancers, reclaiming closed nightclubs, concert halls, cinemas and museums across the U.K. to create the six-part YouTube series, Silent Spaces.
What was the process like behind creating this series?
By November, my team and I began to write to venues, essentially asking them to open the doors for us to enter their spaces during the silence of the pandemic. The British Museum was one of the first to respond with keys and dates. It occurred to me then that I was in a place of extreme privilege. To have that kind of access also meant that I had a responsibility to share it with others. Through weeks of careful casting with my brother Souvid Datta, who directed the series, we assembled a diverse team of pan U.K. artists — South Asian, mixed race and Black — to embark on this journey together. As a sign of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, we wanted to place a young Black singer in the middle of the British Museum, surrounded by colonial history.
I adapted a rare poem originally written by Rabindranath Tagore for her to sing. The new song, which layers blues and soul with a modern trap beat, is called Messengers and speaks to the injustice of systemic racism today, and the parts we can now play to counter this culture of violence. Messengers paved the way for the rest of the series as we set about breaking societal silences in every song, speaking up about mental health issues, the loneliness of the pandemic and the urgency of climate change. Key to visualising this was Souvid’s cutting edge cinematography, while my role was to write an album worth of new songs, lyrics and poetry.
Since the project was conceived during the pandemic, what were the challenges that came your way?
Making art projects before the pandemic was already getting tricky. So trying to make Silent Spaces during lockdown was like peeling a banana blindfolded, with your hands tied behind your back – almost impossible!
But I’m very lucky to have a support team around me, a collective of individuals who value the importance of art, especially in the world today, its impact on young minds and its potential to heal. Collaboration is key to everything we do. It gives us agency and a sense of community. And that bubble is growing! Thanks to millions of artists uploading videos of themselves on Instagram, we were able to discover and engage with new and emerging talent on this project. The creative team for my new work, Songs Of The Earth, is equally as exciting. Watch out for the release in November!
How has the last year changed you — as a person and as an artist?
People say things like ‘there’s no going back now’. I’m inclined to agree. Look at the trauma of 2020. The chasm of conflict and catastrophe that rippled through the world. How can we go back to before the killing of George Floyd? How do we unsee the weary faces of frontline hospital workers? How to deny the 70 million people forced out of their homes? How to forget Amphan? How to relate to the devastating crisis in Yemen? We’ve crossed a threshold, witnessed the failure of states and a tidal wave of human suffering.
For me, there is a need to re-address basic questions now. Who are we? Why are we here? How can we help? As an artist, I believe our purpose is to tell stories, through our voices, bodies and imaginations. I’d like to start telling better stories now, writing songs of change and hope, shedding illusions of nationalism, breaking down borders shaped by greed and embracing a global community of fellow artists, who believe in doing the same.
For someone whose artistry thrives in a live setting, how are you adapting to this new era of streaming and digital art?
Of course I miss live shows! For years I trained as a sarod player in south Kolkata, learning from my guru Pandit Buddhadev Das Gupta, to craft a 60-90 minute concert for a live audience. So much of Indian classical music is about creating anticipation. So my formative years of training were spent learning the art of the long form. Now we’re in a world of TikTok and 15-second Instagram stories! I find it fascinating, like a creative puzzle. How to say what you need to say in 15 seconds! It’s the same for authors who have trained to write 1,000 page novels, now having to find ways of articulating thought in 280 Twitter characters.
In the end, the frame is never a limitation. Whether you’re making something for live or digital, long or short form, it’s about having a clear message that penetrates regardless of the medium. In the past we would learn this from the advertising pundits. Now we’re learning this from 16 year olds, amassing global followings from their bedrooms!
Lastly, are you working on anything new?
I’m currently directing and scoring an animated, music film about climate change. It’s called Songs Of The Earth — a creative commission from British Council, in partnership with Earth Day Network, set to release in November during the UN COP26 summit.
The film is being animated by India-based artists, Sachin Bhatt and Anjali Kamat, who are no strangers to merging arts disciplines and collaborating with musicians. But this time, we’re making the work digitally, using online tools to communicate audio-visual ideas. With only a few months left till our global release, it’s really quite exciting. I’m looking forward to sharing it with Platform and all its readers soon!
Text Hansika Lohani Mehtani
Date 06-08-2021