the warmth of the setting sun still present.
the fragrance of my mother’s evening prayers,
fill up your lungs everytime you take a breath...
The guided audio tour begins seated in an old wooden chair, inside a confessional. The narrative uses nuances of the rootedness of a tree and contradicts it with our own burden of facing the inevitable longing to wander, resulting in landing at periods in life where the search for belonging ‘re-appears’.
From its grounded roots, to the lightness of its branches and leaves swaying with the winds, the experience continues to a spiralling climb up the bell tower, allowing for a moment of doing a journey alone before coming back into the community space.
Artist statement
My research has been a journey. Starting from the decision to come to the Netherlands from India. In a journey, its important to find places of rest. Of reflection. The subject of belonging, is personal. And that’s how I researched it too.Viewing belonging as a journey, it needs certain ingredients to grow, time, repetition, change, and presence of the others.
Over the course of my research I experimented with many forms of spectatorship. I delved into the different ways to draw the spectators in as participants; in isolation, in couples, as a group, as individuals in a group. I create spaces that allow for an individual recognition of the spectator, and gives a moment of collective celebration, before exiting as individuals again. When I look at my research, I look at it as a play of Maya-Lila, two words that mention fluid and ever-changing Maya, and a place of play Lila.
That has been my process of working, of investigating a subject through making. I have been surprised by what play can offer repeatedly, in terms of more questions and various angles of looking at the subject. My work has been a thread inter-linking the various concepts I came across while researching on belonging- such as kinesphere, co-creating, importance of a circle, importance of the other, rites of passage. It flows as an encounter with the same material, (7 archetypes I created), allowing me to deal with various methods of spectatorship, and also various trajectories of belonging, starting from a utopia, to a journey, to a space, a virtual space, an imaginary path, a shared path.
Ambities
I would like to continue being a researcher in my work because it offers exploration and discoveries. I can see myself exploring the exhibition design trajectory in the next year, looking at it from the eye of the scenographer to create immersive experiences for the spectators, while also continuing my individual work as an artist.
Geleerd tijdens de studie
It has been important for me to be open to new directions and ideas through my study which made me realize my potential more.
