Exhibition at Rococo gallery

OUTER SKIN

My partner’s work made me question what fashion means to me. How do I make choices and create my style? What do clothes really mean to me? Does fashion only apply to clothes?

People leave, but their material possessions remain timeless. I look around my grandparents’ house and I find possessions unique to them. Among these, remain my memories of their spirit and time. They remind me of shed skin.

This project exhibits photographs that i have created, experimenting with light, textures and possessions  to recreate  two people through their left behinds; from clothing to hobbies to accessories. I go back to my grandparents' house for a mental walk and try to remember how things are still placed. Some more used than others, some arranged and some showcased.

Rococo exhibit details

Feedback and learning from exhibition 2

the feedback for this project was that it was heart touching and very sensitive. a few viewers thought the process was brave and special. i was personally very satisfied because i was able to work on the previous project's weaknesses. i was able to neaten and clean the presentation such that the viewer had a flowing experience. i was told that it was an experience because it was well connected and easy to take in. the attention to detail impressed a few.i got some feedback as to how it could be better:
one very interesting feedback was that i could have heated up the seat of the chair, and let the viewers sit on it so that they would physically feel his existence too. this made me think about how many more senses can be engaged!
another feedback was that i needed to think about the materials, as the whole set up was very organic but an element or two hindered with the overall feel by not being homogenous. i could immediately think about what could make things better, and it made me realize that theres always more details to look after.
a viewer, an artist herself, said that the garland may have been too easy, too direct. this criticism i didn't understand too well. i thought the garland fit well and i ad chosen it after thinking a great deal. also, it let me treat the process with respect and gave the subject a gentle treatment. it also distanced the viewer just a little bit which is what i wanted. i wanted my memory to be accessible but not pried. i wanted to let the viewers in, but also remain viewers, looking in from the outside. i even stayed and observed the viewers. some remained outside the frame and looked deeply, many went in and looked from a closer point. but no one touched the things displayed or stepped on the petals even though i hadn't put up instructions not to do so. everyone was able to either immerse themselves or just experience, but there was always the feeling of 'looking into' someones memory/journey.
 personally, i found some things to work on too. although i was able to achieve a good entry point and the project succeeded in touching many, even moving some to tears and wanting to hug me :), i realized that i needed to pay more attention to the introduction. this time, i had done the introduction through a concept note and an essay brief of the historical/political events that caused his death. i feel like i need to design the introduction better, so that i can control the outcome or bring the viewer to a place where they can best receive and perceive.

Ideation, Iterations and process.

 here is what the project looked like in my head at stage one. there were  many complications at each step and the project changed shape ,size, and set up a number of times but was successful in retaining the main elements and my thought till the last stage. here, the viewer was to enter througha life size wooden frame, into a roomlike space that would look like this:

here is what the project looked like in the end :)

I finally used the idea of the indian garland hung on pictures of loved ones that have passed away. the garland is a symbol of love and memorizing. i used a garland as my frame and i did a still set up as the things to be remembered and loved. looking through the frame, the viewer saw life: a writer's desk that looked like it is much in use and yet archival objects on it appeared to be floating upwards symbolic of time passing away. the lighting was warm and little details like a jacket hung at the corner of the chair, and a handkerchief hanging out of the pocket, made it look like someone's personal space rather than a set up.
i interviewed many of my family members about what my uncle was like. i tried to understand what his life meant to him and others around him through his hobbies, habits and work. while my family healed as they talked of him as something other than a victim, i tried to build a relationship with him. i tried to get to know him on a first hand basis. i even found our common interests! the project's process was a journey that gave me a chance to get to know someone who didn't exist anymore in the one way most familiar to us, but is also alive in so many other ways.
The frame (garland) and the desk set up had a little walk in the middle, like the time difference of his present and mine. the viewer first stood outside the frame and then took a walk through the frame and was able to stand right at the desk, looking onto it. the desk had a typewriter poised as though in the middle of producing a piece of work. papers seemed to be coming out of it and going upwards, suspended. his photography work too seemed to be coming out of his ancient film camera and going upwards. photographs of him and his life too, were placed giving hints of his personality and his way of life, making it easier for the viewer to relate at any distance they chose.

History write up for project.

What the fire burnt away.

The post Partition Punjab, having gone through a great divide as far as territory and belief are concerned was now a stagnant, broken State of confusion with unresolved issues regarding religion, language and identity. Even as the Green Revolution was introduced as an attempt to establish industry and wealth, the divide between the social classes only increased, as the limited well offs were the only ones to truly and often falsely benefit. At the same time, fear psychosis had taken over its people as territories had been snatched and many were made homeless in the near past. Many lived in fear, stating their language and religion to be another for their own safety. Many longed for their home back in Pakistan.

Extremists and terrorists had a game plan: to make Punjab a separate country called Khalistan, powered by international forces and Indian political parties. Terrorists exploited these unresolved issues, luring many a lumpen people to jump onto the terrorist wagon. The only widespread industry in Punjab was to earn money quickly, in whatever way. Power from weapons and wealth was baited as temptation and reward to increase the extremist force. Weapons were amassed in the holy Golden temple in preparation to start a major armed uprising.

Newspapers and magazines were threatened to state their extremist views. The media thus went through a divide. Statements were published and extremist beliefs and ideas were propagated. Readers and believers reacted in agreement and disagreement; national flags and Constitutional texts were torn in protest. Terrorist groups hijacked buses and killed all Hindus aboard. Terrorists went on shop raids and killed all Sikhs as suspects. Terror was brewing, and the boil was inevitable. These killings in 1984 were the very first dominoes to fall, and the next one fell heavily onto my family.

Sumeet Singh (Shammi), first husband to my mother and elder brother to my father, was lost to this violence in February of 1984 at the age of 30. Two Sikh terrorists shot him, as they refused to believe him Sikh because he was clean-shaven and had short hair. His Kada, which he wore on his wrist, wasn’t proof enough for them. It took nine shots- seven in the chest and two in the head to kill the youth of Shammi, who had love for life flowing in every part of his body. My father carried his brother’s lifeless body back home, the home of Preet Larhi -the oldest Punjabi magazine that had been run by three generations of socially valued literary thinkers. Thinkers, who studied the world and its people, and wrote of freedom, equality, and harmony.  Believers of change including famed writers, actors and artists of his time loved Shammi. He was a sensitive writer, a photographer, a designer and an artist. He was a lover of music, technology and fashion. He was an enthusiast in love with life.

In his last editorials, he had been steering his readers away from extremist thoughts and hatred in response to the state of Punjab. He wrote for his readers, “Every body is chanting Bhindranwala’s (the leader of the extremist force, demanding a separate country in the name of the guru) name, and you will hear the echoes of this chanting wherever you are. But imagine, when he does meet god and proudly lists what he did to save the almighty’s name, god will only rebuke him asking, “Were you to save me, or I, you?””

After his body was cremated, the only thing that remained was his Kada (an iron wrist band)- one of the five things that mark Sikhism- blackened by the fire. 

In preparation of Exhibition 2

For the second exhibition, we received a few guidelines. We were to use a 'frame' and an 'archival object' in order to bring forward a memory.
Quite early on, i had decided that the subject of this project would be my late uncle. he was first husband to my mother and also elder brother to my father. He was killed during the violence in punjab in 1984. i never got to meet him, and i only ever heard of his death when my family talked of him. losing him was traumatic, and my family could never really heal. I rarely got to hear them talking of his life in a celebratory manner. Hence, i got to know very little of him while growing up.
I decided that i would get to know him through this project. I wanted to immerse myself in the stories of his unfortunately short life that my family would tell me, and then detach myself a little. I wanted to get to know of his life and his work. I wanted to be able to celebrate his life rather than remember him dead, and to build a relationship with him.
Initially, I was drawn to exploring the nature of his death: the violence and the sudden end. i thought of installations that would make the viewer feel the violence of 1984, through visuals and soundscapes, and by entering suffocating space set ups.
from here, i wanted to show how there was so much to his life, which was so easily taken away. the robbing of a life became my prime focus.
later on, i was drawn to my only memory of him: a photograph i grew up seeing. i wanted to frame his photograph in a size bigger than the average human body. i wanted people to walk through the frame, by lifting or drawing the fabric printed photograph. they would walk into a small room that would represent his life, using pictures, footage and his belongings. the belongings would seem to be floating upwards along with a rain of red petals symbolic of bloodshed. the installation would be a time freeze of the bloodshed robbing his life.this became the idea i wanted to go ahead with. from here on, i tried to simplify the idea to fit my budget, time availability and recourse availability.
I went through three to four stages of simplification, where i had to reduce, replace, add and clean out the arrangement. this was an interesting process because it required for me not to get too attached to the elements and symbols i chose, and at the same time, it required for me to retain the layers and thoughts as i reduced its complicated structure.

Feedback and Learning from the Exhibition

This was our first exhibition, and like every first time, it came packed with lessons. My project was well received by the viewers and they found it easy to interact with my installations. Some felt that i had succeeded in recreating the simple joy and awe of childhood, when there was ample time to try and make a kite and play with fish in water by moving a stick around in water. They also felt that i was able to bring out the importance of a past and present in a relationship and how they shape one.

  However, some felt that my two installations were distributed and far apart ( in terms of physical location). I felt this too, as i had been  dealing with the challenge of linking the two projects in a manner that would guide the viewer to either sides of the project. I had put up an element of my project- a kite, as a guiding line that connected the two installations, but i feel like i could have figured a stronger connection out. I thus realized, that details within the presentation of a finished project need some thinking and time as this is what minimizes confusions for the viewer, making the whole experience easier to take in. i learnt to look at my work from the viewers' point of view, and made a note of the things that would need attention in the next exhibition.