Maps of a Forgotten City

It is multi-panel reverse painting installation around the myth of Sita, who was tried for her purity, twice. The second time she decided to go back to her mother, earth. Medea can be seen as a more aggressive form of Sita. Both of them were betrayed by their partners. Sita leaves her sons, but Medea, who was treated as a barbarian, thought it was better for her children to be dead than be with Jason and his new bride. So, she apparently kills her two children.

In both cases, a kind of mutation takes place. Twice Upon A Time is an immersive work, 72 inch x 440 inches.

Transgressions III

Transgressions was my video-shadow play in 2001. For the project “Unpacking Europe” curators Salah M Hassan and his partner Iftikhar Dadi invited artists from peripheries, the colonised world, to make artwork addressing the issue of unpacking Europe. It was called Transgressions because at that time India was moving towards globalisation.

It started in the ’90s and by the time we moved to 2000, things changed. I was born in an India where there were only two kinds of cars, and if you wanted one you signed up and got it after 18 years. Now, suddenly you were in a land of plenty. A cellphone company was advertising that now a nimbu paani or vada pav was just a phone call away; this has been put as a nursery rhyme into the piece. There are four cylinders and three video projections. The video elements combine with reverse paintings and shadows.
There are also two wall drawings that will be destroyed later — of Medea as a Turkish guest worker in Germany (daughter of King Aeëtes in Greek mythology, according to one version, avenged her husband’s betrayal by slaying their children); and of global parasites, labourers who are bringing about the real globalisation yet remain invisible. It makes the
invisible visible.

Cities of Desires

This work is a documentation of a wall drawing I did in 1992 in Chemould Gallery, Mumbai. It was to mourn the loss of a beautiful fresco I had seen in an old gymnasium in Nathdwara, which was part of a temple complex. It occupied the facade and the entire ceiling, which is rare, normally frescos are inside a building. This space was being used as a kitchen, so the fresco was full of soot. The person who showed it to me wanted to buy and restore it, but the temple did not want to sell. I decided to incorporate the fresco in my work, with paintings and drawing on the walls of the gallery. Before I erased the ephemeral work, I recorded it. I did not want to sell it, it became part of memory. For me, memory is of great importance, you can’t take away from it.

The room (in KNMA) has series of books I made on Lohar Chawl, Mumbai, where I had my studio for more than 25 years. When it was being repaired for almost a year-and-a-half, I carried my studio in my bag in the form of books. The area was an eye-opener and had a deep impact on my work. The pavement dwellers, who worked in the wholesale market, were never cared for. When you walked on the street you averted your gaze, it was like walking through their bedroom. I could not photograph or work on the street. I would have died of guilt. I drew from memory of these people, bound the books myself. It was hieroglyphs of Lohar Chawl.

As told to Vandana Kalra