Nek Chand
| Nek Chand Saini | |
|---|---|
A waterfall in Nek Chand's Rock Garden
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| Born |
15 December 1924 Barian Kalan, Shakargarh (pre-partition Gurdaspur district), British Indian Empire (now in Pakistan) |
| Died | 12 June 2015 (aged 90) Chandigarh, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Known for | Architecture, sculpture |
| Notable work | The Rock Garden of Chandigarh |
| Movement | Outsider Art |
| Awards | Padma Shri (1984) |
Nek Chand Saini (15 December 1924 – 12 June 2015) was a self-taught Indian artist, known for building the Rock Garden of Chandigarh, an eighteen-acre sculpture garden in the city of Chandigarh, India.
He hailed from Shakargarh region (now in Pakistan) of district Gurdaspur. His family moved to Chandigarh in 1947 during the Partition. At the time, the city was being redesigned as a modern utopia by the Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. It was to be the first planned city in India, and Chand found work there as a roads inspector for the Public Works Department in 1951. He was awarded the Padma Shri by Government of India in 1984. He died in 2015.
This monument, Rock Garden, is one of the most famous sites in India. Nek Chand, the creator of this place, died in 2015. But still this site is visited by millions of people every year.
In his spare time, Chand began collecting materials from demolition sites around the city. He recycled these materials into his own vision of the divine kingdom of Sukrani, choosing a gorge in a forest near Sukhna Lake for his work. The gorge had been designated as a land conservancy, a forest buffer established in 1902 that nothing could be built on. Chand's work was illegal, but he was able to hide it for eighteen years before it was discovered by the authorities in 1975. By this time, it had grown into a 13-acre (5.3 ha) complex of interlinked courtyards, each filled with hundreds of pottery-covered concrete sculptures of dancers, musicians, and animals. Made from recycled materials, Chand built up the mass with a cement and sand mix before adding a final coating of smoothly burnished pure cement combined with waste materials such as broken glass, bangles, crockery, mosaic and iron-foundry slag.
His work was in serious danger of being demolished, but he was able to get public opinion on his side, and in 1986 the park was inaugurated as a public space. Nek Chand was given a salary, a title ("Sub-Divisional Engineer, Rock Garden"), and a workforce of 50 labourers so that he could concentrate full-time on his work. It even appeared on an Indian stamp in 1983. The Rock Garden is still made out of recycled materials; and with the government's help, Chand was able to set up collection centres around the city for waste, especially rags and broken ceramics.
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