Head full of colours -Gowri S, THE HINDU

The year was 1977. Austrian multimedia artist and curator, Werner Dornik was 18 years old and on one of his ‘hippie’ adventures in Varanasi. There, for the first time in his life, he met people with leprosy — back then, he had no idea what leprosy was. Little did he know that he would discover his life’s calling from this very experience as a young adult.

In its 14th year now, Werner’s Bindu-Art-School, located in Bharatpuram in the city, stands as a manifestation of his dream to provide people with leprosy, a better life. “I was running out of money, so I went back to Austria, promising to return after a year. Once back, I photographed Varanasi… Every picture sold brought money for the treatment of one person,” says the 60-year-old social entrepreneur and artist of the inception of this project. By 2000, he was able to sponsor treatment for about 2,00,000 people with leprosy, after which, its treatment was made free by WHO and the Indian government.

“I still had about ₹5,000 left in my account,” he continues. For four years, Werner did not touch the money — reflecting on who he really was as an artist and curator. “I realised I wanted to go back to them and change the way society looked at leprosy,” he recalls. With the help of Chennai-based Padma Venkataraman, who has been actively involved in the rehabilitation of people with leprosy, the idea of an art school emerged. In fact, it was Padma who identified Bharatpuram, in the South of Chennai, where out of a colony of 1,000 people, 700 had leprosy. And in 2005, Bindu-Art-School took form there.

“Society treats people with leprosy as burdens; people are insensitive about their appearance. But I wanted to bring their inner beauty to the fore through art,” Werner continues, “ They are in no way different from the rest but they are almost always isolated. To overcome the pain and years of neglect, they really need to divert their attention to working hard.” He believes that art is a powerful medium of expression: “As an artist, I know that the beauty within is what gets reflected on the canvas,” he says. The students of different age groups, trained in different forms of art like folk and abstract, have done about 60 exhibitions over the last 14 years. While 40% of what they earn from the shows goes into the running of the school, the rest reaches the students, in the form of a stipend. The idea is to financially support them, and discourage them for resorting to begging.

For Werner, the greatest satisfaction comes from seeing his students lose themselves in their work. “When they paint, I see them concentrate. They are no longer in material time and space. Even if they look up once, they immediately go right back,” he says. There have also been instances, where the students have come up to him to describe how they sleep well at nights; their heads filled with colours. “In fact, they start thinking about new ideas as soon as they finish a piece. Through art, they are finding a new world — devoid of sorrows and pain.”

From Pain to Paint, an exhibition of artworks done by the students of Bindu-Art-School will be on till March 7, 5 pm to 9 pm at The Alternative art gallery, Mammallapuram. For details, visit www.bindu-art.at.