By Jigna Padhiar
Sketch Image of Untitled, (Cobweb/ Crossings) |
Reena Kallat’s public art
installation at Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai weaves powerful stories of the
metropolis in the fragile form of a cobweb.
A massive, compelling cobweb
has besieged the front facade of the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum. As you walk
closer to the museum building, it reveals its experiential dimension – a number
of over sized rubber stamps, pinned to each other to form a brawny shape of the
otherwise fragile cobweb.
The rubber stamps instantly
tell you who the artist could be. Mumbai-based artist Reena Kallat has been
working with the form and image of the rubber stamp as a marker for several
years. Her conceptual trajectories are often shaped by the ideas of loss – of
people, places, names, histories among other socio-politico-cultural aspects,
as you may have noticed in her significant practice over the years.
. |
In Untitled, (Cobweb/Crossings) supported by ZegnArt Public and Dr.
Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Reena engages with and urges you to confront the many
streets of Mumbai that have, in the process of decolonization, gone through
name changes, from the anglicized British names to indigenized, regional ones.
. |
Each street name has a
story upon which are layered more stories over time. For Reena, the changed
names are a palimpsest onto which generations re-inscribe stories. Stories
being re-interpreted and altered, in a way result in the loss of history. As Reena
wondered in what manner streets define a city’s imagination and how their names
speak about the people who occupy them, several rubber stamps, each bearing the
colonial name of a street, started interlacing into a cobweb. Researching,
interviewing people residing on these streets, photographing and video
documenting…revealed more stories every day as the work took shape.
. |
The artist visualises the
installation in the context of the museum and its history. “The museum itself
narrates the history of the city and its people through its collections.” Just
like the museum’s historical existence itself tells a tale, the cobweb is an
evocation of time. She says, “Stories that remain unvisited gather cobwebs that
appear to hold dust from the past.’’
The work invites viewers to
engage visually and intensely participate in the experience. Untitled (Cobweb/Crossings) moves
between social and personal, between history and the present, leaving little
gaps for viewers to weave in their tales. It’s surprising how many stories
unveil within us...
Venue: Dr. Bhau
Daj Lad Museum, Byculla, Mumbai
Dates: March 3 through April, 2013
Timing: 10 am to
5:30 pm (Closed on Wednesdays)
Open to all
No comments :
Post a Comment