The community of artists has approached Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan urging him to reimagine Kerala Lalithakala Akademi as an arts-friendly space.
The memorandum was signed by 280-odd artists who are active within and outside the State.
The artists lamented that the Akademi meant for the promotion of painting and sculpting had been in a dormant state in the absence of a capable leadership. They attributed the irrelevance and drop in the quality of the Akademi to entrusting its leadership with people bereft of knowledge, insight and commitment about designing programmes for the growth of visual arts.
The memorandum said hat a trend seemed to be in vogue whereby ineligible people usurped the leadership of the Akademi through pressure tactics or by misleading the government using their political clout. Consequently, funds earmarked for the activities of the Akademi went waste on programmes designed without any far-sightedness.
Only a negligible section of those genuinely interested and committed to arts managed to get aboard the managing committees of the Akademi. Even their fair-minded recommendations for a change were being ignored.
The memorandum reminded how many artists had quit the executive committee in protest against the alleged autocratic tendencies and rudderless positions of the Akademi that only tended to encourage divisions among the artist community.
The governing committee of the Akademi, which had stooped to the level of a welfare society, should be dismissed immediately, demanded the artists.
It should be replaced by a committee by including people irrespective of their political affiliations and who were committed to improving the quality of arts and were enthusiastic about creating awareness about arts in society as envisaged by the Akademi's constitution, artists said.
