On Site | Remnants of Memory

The past was once present and the present soon embraced the future! This cyclic constant inherently leaves some impressions on our lives- some etched forever in our conscious mind while some deeply ingrained in those little corners of our sub-conscious mind. These impressions are nothing but fragments of our memory that we hope to look back at days, months or years gone by with nostalgia, happiness, anger or an over-whelmed mixed feeling.

Humans are emotional animals. To satisfy our emotional needs, we somehow manage to capture some moments, rather some sweet memories in a photograph. But life is not a movie and all cannot be captured forever and ever. Hence, we end up holding on to “memory keepers”- tangible objects and intangible emotions that continue to keep our memories alive.

The previous year was all about revisiting those memory lanes, some lost in its trajectory, some having bitter sweet traces while some strongly reminiscent of an important event. This exercise of reliving the past certainly left us with being more empathetic to oneself and philosophically introspecting on notions of identity and experiences. Vadehra Art Gallery’s previous home ground exhibition- (ME)(MORY) wove multi-sensory and multi-dimensional narratives through realms of personal history, cultural consciousness and creative processes.

Installation Shot of (ME)(MORY) at Vadehra Art Gallery, Delhi

Challenging the literary genre of memoir, Vadehra’s in-house curation presented a collection of fresh interpretations on the notion of memory through the lens of nine women artists. They extended this idea, “On-Site” to the magnificent Bikaner House. This curation explored the “Remnants of Memory” through the lens of Pritzker Award winner, B.V. Doshi.

Khushnu Panthaki-Hoof, Doshi’s granddaughter curated some of his lockdown works revisiting his personal narratives woven through visual language of vibrant colours and textures. These works represent Doshi’s collection of memories highlighting various episodes of life. A familiar palette of colours, shapes, forms and volumes emerges in these canvases, drawn from his early impressions as well as his architectural oeuvre. They are truly his ‘artistic memoir’ as stated in the curatorial note.

In my opinion, these works are a confluence wherein Doshi’s architectural structures and defined planes meet pure abstraction. These works are almost like a window into Doshi’s mind. Architectural elements continue to thrive faintly behind those urbanscapes. They somehow also reminds me of Sameer Kulavoor’s ‘Infrastructure’ recently displayed at Bombay based art gallery, TARQ.

(L) Architectural Dreams, 2020 by B.V. Doshi; (R) Infrastructure, 2020 by Sameer Kulavoor

Interestingly, both created their respective pieces during the same time, the lockdown!

While for Doshi, those arches and staircases, defined his “Architectural Dreams”, for Kulavoor, they formed his personal interpretations of “Infrastructure”.

Same concept and elements but originating from different thought processes!

For Doshi, they were memoirs of his past, while for Sameer, these sketches formed diaries of his present (at that moment while painting them).

Art has truly been a witness of the past, present and future. These works beautifully juxtapose the past with the present while imagining a future. This journey of bridging gaps between diverse time frames eventually weaves into narratives that we categorically term as “Memory".

Image courtesy: The Artist