A5 Catalogue

Artworks commissioned for Thoratwada by Artha Studio

The photos of the setting up of an industry are abstracted out to show the aura around the new business ventures. Several images are combined and printed as a single frame. The cyanotype process takes away the sharp reference, and transfers it as traces and symbols of new beginnings – a large crowd, an industrial steel structure, a white government vehicle and a helicopter hovering above.

Size : 1’ X 2’ and 2’ x 3’ Cyanotype print on Acid-free Water-colour paper; Framed with non-reflective glass
Location : First Floor Staircase Landing

A set of 5 postcards along with a quote are given people attending the house warming party on 19th August. The images on the front of the postcards are representations of the family - the lineage, the spiritual and religious bent of mind, the political connections and the industrial might. Guests are requested to write their memories or thoughts based on the image as trigger.

Images compel the imagination because they remain radically open-ended. In retrieving loose succession of fragmentary glimpses of the past, the viewer is flung into a condi¬tion of imaginary, temporal and spatial mobility. These images call for participation; they organise affect, desire etc. As, what is interesting is not image as a representation of reality, but its dynamic power, its ability to stir up and build projections, interactions and narrative frames structuring reality, its ability to select among infinite pos¬sible experiences, so that imagination becomes image in action. Images are the basic political dispositive today - an interpretative and narrative dispositive for constructing new realities.

Essentially, memory is a fixation usually accompanied by the projectile capaci¬ties of the imaginary, whose very possibility requires forgetting.
Paul Virilio

The postcards (as image and text) make one re-think the notion of history and time as inherently flowing and sequential. Postcards become memory traces in part of the con¬struction of the absent subject through silences and their replacements within the present. The absence of a sign is always the sign of an absence. ‘It explores different notions of pastness, showing that the past and present are not sequential that some pasts live in the present. People suppress some stories and reveal others and ‘remembering forgetfully’ is part of imagining their futures.’
The work has a distinct front and back; a grid of repetitive images in a grid in front and a diverse text-ure on the flipside.
Each image will be framed along with various texts written about the image.

Size : 2’ x 2’ - 5 Frames with clear glass
Location : The 5 frames will connect the ladies and gents living spaces.

‘A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as Objects, themes and regions’. -Wikipedia definition
Photograph is the cultural, political, social representation of an area.
Through map one can build cultural understanding of any specific geography. But reading of photographs is a reverse journey of constructing cartography from visual imagery. Geographies are coded in the elements of the photograph. Complete map only gets constructed when all the elements are decoded. Shiva, thread and vermillion are like given elements to solve the riddle. Once you have placed the missing links between these elements one can exactly locate a region on a map.
Cartography in this photograph has skewed dimensionality by embedding thread rituals from specific geography and Shiva together. It’s like Holbein’s painting which has two spaces intertwined within each other. Painting reveals distinct nature of two spaces through different perspectives while this photograph reveals these spaces through different practices yet fused within each other to make it appear singular in nature. Historically Shiva is known for re-territorializing social space from its barbaric nature to civilized form (society entering in rigveda phase). Which means this deity himself lived ‘undomesticated space’ phase during his formative periods, but threads on the other hand indicates how society is bound in set of rule based practices. Thread ritual is known among certain communities which are practiced by married women asking god to domesticate their space for next seven lives. These paradoxes get abstracted in this photograph which maps specificity of certain geography.

This artwork is an edition of 5 prints only and has been critically acclaimed by various professionals in the UK.

Size : 2’ x 3’ digital print on Archival Canvas; Framed with clear glass
Location : Diwan-e-Aam

A Sanji cow artwork embeds the mass production of flavoured milk. The technique of printing or rubber stamping the iconic milk bottles reflects the production line and grand scale of the industry. The work refers to Kaamdhenu as the cow of plenty and the provider of milk and milk products and is inspired by Andy Warhols silk screen prints.

Size : 2’ x 2’ digital print on Archival Paper with rubber stamping; Framed with non-reflective glass
Location : Home Theatre

5 Saints – Gagangiri Maharaj, Jangli Maharaj and his disciple Janglidas, Mauni Baba, Yashwant Baba and Narendra Maharaj are portrayed directly across the Shiva image. The saints who are followers of Shiva, are themselves shown within the domestic space of the family. The saints hold a near God-like status.

Size : 5 nos of 12’ x 16” prints on archival paper, framed in non-reflective glass.
Location : Diwan-e-Aam

‘(There) is a type of space we all … have stored in memory: spaces that are detailed and precise, fragments generally, at all levels of reminiscence. And of course, once you get into reminiscence, an infinite number of associations emerge. Memory seems to create a unique kind of space setting up an about-to-be-disintegrated level.’ – Gordon-Matta Clark

Small 2” x 3’ prints from the family album will be printed as cyanotypes to create a large textured frame. Each image would have its own value and would collectively speak about generations of family time.

Size : 4’ x 4’ Collage of hand printed Cyanotypes from the family archive, framed with non-reflective glass.
Location : Mid-Landing to first floor.