Do not touch the art objects, but feel free to step in my house

Extending spaces with-in and out “Home Memories”....

an exhibition with 

                   Alexis Boucher- France
                   Diana Valarezo – Ecuador
                   Hemant Sareen - India
                   Isabel Herguera –Spain
                   M.Pravat- India
                   Manmeet Devgun - India

                   Samudra Kajal Saika - India

“Home Memories” looks to study notions of home as explored through representation of displacement, nostalgia and personal attachments to architecture, geographic locations and memory.

The exhibition addresses questions of homesickness, family and nationality.

The selected works portray the experience of home moving, migrations, and personal attachments to places, lands and objects. These visual narrations work as personal as well as stories and

collective acts of memory. 

Curated by Jose Abad Lorente.  

Within the premise of “Home memories”, an exhibition conceptualized by Jose, we developed a concept for a site specific work and executed it recently. The work has multiple facets and thus I would like to talk about it in the following segments:

1.    Do not touch the art objects, but feel free to step in my house

This is spatial work, done on the floor of the tarace and to see the work one has to walk upon the work itself. The work is not “permanent” and is not in the “traditionally excepted” mediums. i.e. it is not a work like oil on canvas, printed on acid free archival papers, casted in bronze etc. the work is not to be preserved inside a dark room, or to be kept in a museum or gallery. But at the same time, it is a part of very much “mainstream” gallery space practice. It is a part of the initiative taken by “Abadi Art Space”, Lado Sarai, Delhi. One cannot sale it. One cannot own it. The only thing one can do is, to experience it.

The value (and price) of the artwork is always determined by the ways or presentation, and the ways of preservations. So a sense of care, how the way you are taking care of it, definitely matters a lot. But in this particular case, the work is done outside, left open for sunlight, autumn dust, and all other elements of the changing weather in Delhi.  Moreover, by proposition, by physicality and by all conditions this is an art work meant to be foot stepped. This is an art work what you not only can touch, but also step on it. In fact, without stepping on it, you cannot see the entire work and cannot get the whole experience of it.

For some reasons we do not understand the strategies of ‘high’ art. We do not feel comfortable with them, instead we prefer to practice something that is accessible to a larger audience, and moreover, which is “touchable”.

2.    Aao sakhi Hum Lagri Khelein... 

                    Aao sakhi hum lagri khelein

                    main jeeta toh tera ghar mera

                    tu jeeti toh mera ghar tera...

The work was planned in black and white so that it stands out in the evening lights as well and also goes with the theme of inside-and-outside. One enters the space and suddenly discovers the drawings on the floor. Now definitely there is a dilemma in the visitor’s mind whether to step on or not to step on. Or if step on exactly where to step on. The way of space divisions and the matter of stepping on them reminded me about ‘Langri’ a rural Indian fun-game mostly popular among the children.

Now the inscriptions on the floor turned up with a small poetic piece in Hindi, which says “Come on dear, let’s play Langri. If I win then your house will be mine, and if you win, then my house is yours”. This instantaneous couplet appears complementary to the work in many ways. The work as a whole contains an interplay of positive and negative spaces and the theme itself is woven around the inside outside experiences.  

The ways of saying has a reminiscence of a lyrical rendering by Hazarat Hussain Shah, a sufi poet from medieval India, where he says, “Come friend let’s play the dice together. If I win then you will be mine, and if you win, I will be all yours”.

3.    I do not think, but exist

We are artists working in delhi, coming from some other parts of India. While talking about Home(s) we shared some experiences around identity, the ways and necessities of proofing an individual’s identity in a democratic country. This portion of work is a funny retake on the most famous Cartesian saying: I think, so I exist. Here is written on the floor just below your feet:

even if I do not think

I exist.

I do not have a voter ID card

I do not have a PAN card

I do not carry a permanent residency card

I do exist

I do not drive a car I do not have a driving license

I do not have a passport to produce in front of you

Yet I exist

I dont have a rent agrement

I do not have a postpaid mobile connection

Still I exist.

I cannot proof my residency

Still I reside

I cannot establish my dwelling

But I do dwell

But I exist

Yet I exist

Still I exist

Yes

I

4.    The house of Kabir, The house of Buddha

One of the most important and interesting aspect of a site specific work is the improvisation. Mostly the found objects and the given circumstance become an integral part of the work, being the found elements of the space also the artistic elements of the work. Here we “found” a house for Kabir, a ‘matka’, with an inscription- “kabir’s earthen pot, broken, yet not broken...” and also found a home for Gautama Buddha, “in search of the origin of sufferings, Buddha had to leave his home”.

We are engaged into a venture what we call “disposable Theatre”. Whatever we practice, we look for an ephemeral and purely space-and-time specific artistic execution without the promise of sustainability. This current work is also “disposable”. It is meant to be foot-stepped, and to be erased away. Not to be preserved inside a museum, or to be sold in the market. When in the contemporary capitalist artistic practice the art is being examined on the basis of the longevity, sustainability and material(ist) quality, this work, this home, is essentially tries to fade away – stepped away – disposed away... by its own will....

Note:

The work can be read as an extended practice of the project “DISPOSABLE HOUSE: The Imagery of ‘House’ in individual and Collective Memories”, a multidisciplinary project that was being developed since 2004 in shifting places, along diversified groups and individuals across multilayered mediums. (It included: Performances, theatres, animation films, short films, blogging, photo documentations, field-studies, researches, musical shows, installations, comic strips, book publishing, journalistic writings, cultural criticisms, artist-interactive-programs, and other individual and collective artistic sub-projects).

Samudra Kajal Saikia

kankhowa@gmail.com

mobile: 9811375594

Collaborating artist: Ashutosh Yadav (Kathputlee Interactive)