Recreating Identity

Another work,Last Supper,is also the second photograph of its kind. Named after Italian artist Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece,this one couldn’t be more different from the original. A group of people in traditional Indian attire and masks sit at a table that’s apparently placed in the middle of New York’s Times Square,eating a South Indian meal. Neither the people nor the food they are eating belongs in the centre of Times Square,but Vilasini says this is a representation of globalisation. “Globalisation has allowed us to accept things from all over the world and relate to them,” he says. On the other hand,dressed thus,these people could also represent those trying to hold on to their roots.

A multimedia artist and photographer,Vilasini’s work often explores the concept of personal identities and how one chooses to express them in the social context. “I’m interested in how we construct our identities in our personal lives,” he says. These works are currently on display at Sakshi Gallery,Colaba,as part of the 47-year-old artist’s solo exhibition titled Between One Shore and Several Others,which will continue until January 12.

For him personally,a number of people — writers,thinkers and artists — had a strong impact on him and in a work titled Ways of Seeing,he pays tribute to these icons. Comprising 20 photographs,each work is the face of one of these men digitally imposed on the face of the artist to give one complete image. These images have been arranged so as to allow one of Vilasini’s eyes to merge into that of these men. “I might be trying to see through somebody’s eyes,” he says,explaining this arrangement. These men,who Vilasini says he admires for their ideologies among other things,include figures such as Che Guevara,Woody Allen,Mahatma Gandhi,Malcolm X and Bob Marley.