Forgetfulness

Transparent Studio (Project +91), New York India Art Fair, New Delhi Interdisciplinary Installation, Dimensions Variable, Goat Skin Parchment, Wood, Computer, Projector, Arduino Forgetfulness is an interdisciplinary installation centered around a 7ft tall, mechanized shadow puppet (hand-cut from parchment), of a spindly, spidery-armed woman, that flails about and jerks away from her audience, when approached. Modelled after my grandmother, the puppet’s frantic attempts to maintain control over her belongings, echoes my grandmother’s frustration at her fading memory, and her subsequent need to arrange all her belongings within arms reach. The violent yet comical, even endearing nature of her movements, parallels our own tendency to seek harbour in our material attachments. Still a work in progress, the installation is a meditation on the pre-existing condition of mortality and our attempts to cope with it. It grapples with the duality of material dependence as a means of seeking stability and permanence, perhaps even immortality, against the unrelentingly fleeting and ephemeral nature of life. Transience is the only permanence here - even seemingly solid, material objects are rendered ephemeral and hazy, while a calm, humming quietly accepts what is in store.