How artist Gigi Scaria’s new show at Chemould Prescott Road draws attention to the uncomfortable realities of our times
Gigi Scaria, 51, talks about his latest show that presents a human-centric perspective to living in cities, the impact of our choices on the environment and how artists imagine a parallel universe
Gigi Scaria (Photo credit: Chemould Prescott Road) Could you tell us about borrowing the title of the exhibition from German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm’s inclusive concept of ‘biophilia’?
I have been working on the issues of drastic change in massive urbanisation of rural India, its deep impact on the social system and the cultural and political undercurrents of our country. The extension of the same can be seen by the changing climatic conditions and environmental disasters. In that context, the term ‘biophilia’ has an important role to play. A human-centric perspective has been shifted to accommodate other life forms and its existence through this term.
For years, you have highlighted the nature-human relationship. In this exhibition, too, the bronze sculpture Phantom Limb depicts a tonsured earth transformed into a large flower, representing the power of nature to assert itself. The digital installation Shut Wide Open underscores the consequences of the calamities prompted by humans. If you could talk about this engagement?
This is an urgent need of our times. In the ’70s and ’80s people thought the climate crisis was distant but now the drastic changes are evident. There is social consciousness, but also a feeling of helplessness on how a substantial change can be achieved, which perhaps also needs more political will.
Gigi Scaria’s Phantom Limb (Photo credit: Chemould Prescott Road)
In this exhibition, Phantom Limb shows a massive mountain dismantled by bulldozers and trucks over a period of time. As the title suggests, mother earth could have the sensation of pain for that amputated or missing part.
The video sculptures titled Shut Wide Open opens three different doors to the viewers. In the first segment, a shooting star represents the unpredictability of life — each observer sees something different: a wish, a sign, or a fleeting moment of change. The star speaks to our varied perspectives on predictions. The second part unfolds with an infinite series of doors, opening and closing — a metaphorical exploration of opportunities and choices. Finally, the third segment brings us to stark glacier melt, symbolising the undeniable truth of our changing environment. It serves as a bare confrontation with reality, highlighting the pressing consequences of human-made calamities. Together, the three parts create a poignant narrative, reflecting on humanity’s role in shaping the environment, the varied lenses through which we view our actions, and the doors of opportunity that may either lead to change or exacerbate our impact on the planet.
Architecture and city-building have also been recurring themes in your work. You started sketching abstract maps of Delhi when you were still pursuing your post-graduation at Jamia Millia Islamia. More recent works such as Absence of an Architect (2007) Philosopher’s Stone (2017) and All About This Side (2017) also warn of the widening disparities brought by urban development. If you could talk about highlighting the issue?
These issues are universal, only the nature and degree might vary. The painful truth of human existence has made its brutal assertion on everything perceived and imagined. We are now introducing ecologically-conscious models of architecture but in the present demography these small efforts can bring little change.
In this exhibition, the canvas If on a winter’s night, a traveller – that borrows its title taken from the novel by Italo Calvino — shows five landscapes in one frame connected with aspects of time. A serene landscape changes with a massive destructive makeover, leading to a large urban settlement and subsequently transforms into an enormous industrial unit in the final frame. Another single-channel video, Familiar places, estranged surroundings, shows random landscapes shot by me from different parts of the world where I travelled in the last decade. Each landscape is slashed in the middle, through which you see the next landscape. The cut destroys the calmness of nature, going beyond the stage of repair. The slashing also has an art historical reference, drawing from Italian artist Lucio Fontana’s experimental paintings where he cut his canvas to create a hole in the middle, suggesting flatness of an artist’s vision, which goes beyond the surface to experience reality.
Gigi Scaria’s Discomfort is inevitable, escape is optional piece (Photo credit: Chemould Prescott Road)
Do you feel it essential as an artist to engage with the social realities of the times? For your 2004 video A day with Sohail and Mariyan, you followed two waste-pickers for a month; the video installation Elevator From the Subcontinent transported viewers to urban homes from different strata of society. The recent exhibition “Moments of Collapse”, curated by you, pondered the realities of our condition “socially, personally and politically”.
As an artist, I draw inspiration and content from my immediate surroundings. I am not propagating that an artist should always respond to one’s own social realities, but a reality which the artist perceives cannot be devoid of the time we live in. Understanding and being aware of the parallel existence of different realities is very important in order to create. Personal perspective and political realities, at times, create a definite clash. That’s where an artist creates a parallel world, which holds the key to the future and the making of a better one.
Share
