'Imaginary Otherlands' was an exploration of the ideas, descriptions, interpretations and emotions shared by students of two different colleges housed within the same building.
What is it that divides the atmosphere from the water? Is it air or is it water?
Leonardo
The idea of pushing boundaries looks into varying perspectives that seek to understand the individual ideas of space. What allows a person to stay inside the created boundaries or what keeps them out, and to what extent do these physical indicators create an abeyance in the mental, spiritual or emotional notions of the mind. Many believe to claim that the boundaries they adhere to are conscious manifestations that have been they have innately been born with. What happens when the space itself allows a shift depending on ones personal need? What happens when the designations allocated are movable. Where does one look to know the parameters they were told existed.
This intermingling of perspectives, allows one to see the audacity each individuals opinion holds to create new spaces from old ones. Looking to create an idea of the space that the space allows but doesn't physically hold. “ A site- specific installation” adheres to one working with and around the space allocated, to allow the acceptance of new ideas of the space through personal interventions, expressions and questions. Owing to my personal aloofness to the space allocated to us through this project, I couldn't bring forward a singular direction I would have liked to address. But considering that also gave me the advantage of being open to the variants this space holds to my peers, which allowed my thoughts to be moulded according to what I see and hear.
Through this project I seek to understand through various expressive mediums what creates the character of this space I appear to have no emotions for. In a series of
video recordings, looking at different parts of the space all at once I want to see what the overwhelm feeling of these ideas the space creates. Along with the recordings are a
set of narratives collected over days from people around. A collaboration of text, images and video, I am looking to see how the stacking of three different physical mediums allows the creation of a fourth physical space in the limited time we had been given to experience the space. I look forward to the exhibition for the event of some sort of clearance, through these various permutations and combinations of the opinions formed and look to engage in an experience which my fellow peers
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When you come from different worlds, constantly conscious of one having had taken over the other's space, how does that affect relationships? Stemming from the conversation and the then political temperament about migration, adaptation and shared spaces of cities, the Srishti College Campus and Miranda Nursing home campus was taken as a case study to understand how space is perceived differently by different people, with different associations to the space.
Through a series of interventions, the themes of boundaries, discomfort, separation, discrimination and adaptation were captured.
On one hand, by conducting a set of interviews on stories and descriptions of the building, we built a verbal documentation of the diverse perceptions of the building and imagery. There were instances of discrimination based on the personas of a "design student" v/s a"regular student" and vice-versa, instances of a checking being done on every floor. Observations around the difference in ethnicity being a reason for mistrust and more.
On the other hand, by capturing the common areas v/s the private areas of the two campuses on video, there was a distinct shift in behaviour noticed amongst the students, staff and faculty. Understanding the gaze and imagining it to be the 'Big Brother' this video was then edited and played as a site-specific installation to look like a CCTV camera footage and played at the entrance of the buildings. There was a visible sense of consciousness around the common areas and if one came across themselves in the video the expression was that of strange discomfort. Funnily, there weren't any CCTV camera's present during the time of this project and neither was the recording done in a voyeuristic manner. In fact the recording was done in broad day light with the camera and the camera person in clear site.
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Ad Hominem - The zine and the film are together part of a longer proposed series which rests as a contradiction on the phrase. By attacking the topic rather than the people, personalities and motive, the phenomena can be viewed as a behavioural drawback rather than individual personas creating the rift or stereotype when two or more communities share spaces.
April 2015
A study on space, a study on boundaries, a study of the gaze and a study of prohibitions.
When you think of shared spaces, does familiarity grow or is it a hinderance to share the space.
When you think of boundaries, is it forced or is it habit that forms inbuilt barriers?
When you think of the gaze, do you always assume it to be a man's?
When you think of prohibitions, are they always physical?
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Publication of the zine - AD HOMINEM
