‘Art is life: Old Threads, New Stories’ - MAP, Museum of Art & Photography, Bangalore | 2023
For eight months, I started to pore through the immense collection of MAP, Museum of Art and Photography, Bangalore. The goal was to discover taking off points for reimagining incredible works of art through 10-12 minute short films. In due time, a series of seven appeared. Each one a universe of its own. Some narratives were fictional, some were inspired by real stories, some were reflections of real characters. Each of them was a distinct product of unsupervised imagination and yet a commonality appeared between them in the most curious of spaces. This series of seven will be showcased at the 'Art is life' festival of MAP on the second of December in Bangalore.
CAMPO Artfest : Radical Nature: The Roots of Land + Water, Garzón, Uruguay | 2023
The question I arrived with was, ‘What do the children remember of the past?’ Agustina’s exploration revealed an astounding observation by one of the kids. He said, ’The past has no sound’. It opened my eyes to a Garzón whose past is on mute, existing in plain sight. Then came a deeply personal experience. The children asked me to listen. The sounds of present and future Garzón arrived to my senses. A river that is the lifeblood. Fire that is forever company. Galloping horses and endless horizons that are freedom. And the sound of the school, that might sound like chaos at first but is actually a classical prelude. Like Chopin’s prelude in E minor, Garzón too has many beginnings. Beginnings into which the children invite you. Unknowingly, the words that the children said the most to me, were ‘You and I’.
CAMPO Artfest : Radical Nature: The Roots of Land + Water, Garzón, Uruguay | 2023
When I met the kids of Garzón, time stretched itself. They were everywhere all at once. They ran away from my camera, a foreign gaze. My time with them also flew by, listening, earning their trust. One moment, I was introducing myself; before I knew it, it was a month later and I was saying goodbye. Time also contracted in the same breath. These are not just their portraits, but reflections of how short our time is in the context of the entirety of time. They also reflect our conversation. Me, them, and the camera in between. The more they are themselves, the more intricate and complex they are; even time is broken in the company of their true selves, dancing beyond the irony of Greig's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King'. Our existence only encompasses a split second, but our thoughts and actions stretch ourselves. The roots of our past, and the seeds of our future, are more than enough, they are whole. They also live forever lives.