In Search of a Dream and Other Stories

Jan 21, 2016 - Mar 1, 2016

This project was inspired by the tradition of oral culture and storytelling. The artist reinterprets the everyday in a visual format reminiscent of folktales, short stories and the Modern play. Each day piles upon the next, constructing pasts and personal histories of meandering anecdotes, hearsays, gossip and popular wisdom—creating tangible meanings—that bypass the elusiveness of one’s own identity. And this meaning making, being a process of tracing random associations by the unconscious, assumes a dreamlike quality. The visuals are saturated with unreal colours, telling tales of the subtle, subjective realities of life that are absurd even when they feel profound. As these deceptively straightforward and random stories unravel and untangle, they reveal a complex subtext: a circuit of visceral sensibilities, philosophical concepts, popular culture, myths and fictions that propel us towards an anxious and uncertain future by informing our unique negotiations with the mundane and dramatic elements embedded in the past and the present. Inspired by and contributing to the particular ways in which we construct our sense of self are videos and mixed media work on paper that interplay with text by writer Manoj Nair to form little stories. The project aims to eventually assume the format of a paperback publication and hopefully a quarterly of stories and visuals, to fit with patterns of consumption that we have managed to import to metaphysical and transient experiences.

CURATORIAL NOTE

“I have never felt more beautiful,” he assured himself as he stood atop the piece of stone from where the bridge across the valley began. He had always known that he had several rivers to cross but he longed for some company to do that. And all hopes of finding a friend who would understand fell by the wayside. It’s been a year and a half since his last relationship. The last one lasted only three months, as did the one before. Yet he was not used to being really single or even understanding what was it in him that drove people away. Those that he really cared for and wanted to be with. He had always been looking for that bridge across, what is it — Yes, forever. And now after a short career of fits and starts that never seem to be going anywhere he had lost all importance of life in his own eyes. He was an athlete and he had not been able to run far with it. But now when he stood there feeling the cold breeze stroking his bare body, he realized there could be no respite from despair that had become his only soul mate in a city that had hardly anything to offer but lonesomeness. So he had chosen that spot and a full moon night to scream loudly about how he felt in that solitary moment of joy. Because he wanted to bask in the shiny, silver light as he took the last plunge into the ravine.

– Excerpt from ‘The Leap’ by Manoj Nair