DOMES
(2015)
Silent multiple channel video installation, with matka and projections.
Projections filmed at Khoj International Artists' Association, New Delhi, India.
DOMES is a silent video work that explores spaces of abandoned ruin in Delhi. It uses the form of a matka (a clay pot) to offset footage of the ancient tombs that are a distinctive feature of Delhi’s landscape.
As structures from Delhi’s past, these tombs are now protected monuments. While they are therefore no longer ‘living’ spaces in the sense they were intended – almost all tombs contain the remains of past kings and their families, or of people whose identities are unknown – they are still spaces that are often visited by city inhabitants and have taken on a new life as sites that are often used for picnics, afternoon naps and walks.
The contrast of these senses of abandonment and ruin, and the present day context of these spaces is explored in this work. The matka serves several purposes in this narrative. It has symbolic links to the tomb, especially in its broken form which has associations with death in Hindu ritual.
The work is also a study of physical forms as they are represented through video. Both the dome of the tomb and the matka are similarly spherical, without being perfectly symmetrical, and bear marks of use and wear. The matka’s intervention breaks the flat form of the video’s dome through its shadow and material contours, taking the footage from a realistic to a more cubist aesthetic.
Projections filmed at Khoj International Artists' Association, New Delhi, India.
DOMES is a silent video work that explores spaces of abandoned ruin in Delhi. It uses the form of a matka (a clay pot) to offset footage of the ancient tombs that are a distinctive feature of Delhi’s landscape.
As structures from Delhi’s past, these tombs are now protected monuments. While they are therefore no longer ‘living’ spaces in the sense they were intended – almost all tombs contain the remains of past kings and their families, or of people whose identities are unknown – they are still spaces that are often visited by city inhabitants and have taken on a new life as sites that are often used for picnics, afternoon naps and walks.
The contrast of these senses of abandonment and ruin, and the present day context of these spaces is explored in this work. The matka serves several purposes in this narrative. It has symbolic links to the tomb, especially in its broken form which has associations with death in Hindu ritual.
The work is also a study of physical forms as they are represented through video. Both the dome of the tomb and the matka are similarly spherical, without being perfectly symmetrical, and bear marks of use and wear. The matka’s intervention breaks the flat form of the video’s dome through its shadow and material contours, taking the footage from a realistic to a more cubist aesthetic.
