Category: Online Exhibition

When legendary French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier designed the layout of Chandigarh, he never included Sector 13, because 13 is considered to be an unlucky number in European cultures. Furthermore, every sector of the city and their opposite sectors add up to 13 or its multiples. These superstitions, in the context of Chandigarh’s master plan are the starting point of a reflection on architecture and post-colonialism in this film. It traces the paths of sector 17, a commercial area in the centre of Chandigarh. The correspondence between Swiss architect Pierre Jeanneret and Corbuiser also features in the film.

‘Video Landscape: Now I never go home on the old road‘,
2015 Single Channel Video, Looped, Color, Sound, 10 min

Now I never go home on the old road is a collaged sequence of the multiple journeys the artist made between Sri Lanka’s capital city Colombo, his current place of residence, to Negombo, his hometown. The footage was shot over two years, and reflects the rapidly changing landscape of the country. This is indicative of the post-war phase, characterised by widespread urban development. Through the artist’s eyes we see how remnants of the violent war were concealed with concrete and tar, in the effort to fit into the generic mould of cityscapes found all over the world. These “unexceptional, repetitive testimonies of urbanity” evoke the jarring absence of “erstwhile topographies that evoked wartime memories”. As we are drawn into the narrative, we are led to wonder what these constructions are hiding beneath them, and to ask whether trauma and suffering can indeed be concealed by their conspicuous materiality.

“Inspace… In the ruins of the city world”

Inspace.ar is an exhibition of paintings weaving poetic narratives with augmented reality. The A.R. application implemented by the artist brings alive the stories within the paintings. By moving around the works with his mobile device (Android or iOS), the visitor discovers the spatial, narrative and sound dimensions. 

Each painting reveals the universe of a figure (a character or an entity): the granite rock, the Buddha, the dragonfly and so on. This universe consists of twelve paintings, twelve stories, twelve figures, all in search of their own truth. Inspace, a considerable achievement in the creative use of technology, opens up new and unusual possibilities for viewers to engage with paintings. 

Although the work is still in progress, the artist has generously contributed three paintings and their A.R. Representations to this exhibition. You can find further information on artist’s website, here. 

Note: The exhibition is produced by B2Fays Creation & Fil d’Ariane Association, with the support of the Alliance Française of Hyderabad and the Institut Français in India. Special thanks are offered to Bari Kumar (artist) who lent his voice to this series, and to Samuel Berthet (curator) who contributed to the project. Please note the privacy policy of the project as well.

Metabolism is the first part of Pierre-Jean Giloux’s four-film series titled ‘Invisible Cities’. Metabolism refers to an urban architectural movement that took place in Japan in the 1960s. The pioneers of this movement viewed urban planning as an organic process, designing buildings in the image of living things: molecules, cells, DNA etc. The artist juxtaposes digitally rendered visuals based on their sketches of what they envisioned as the future with footage from contemporary Tokyo, thus expanding the boundaries of time and space. This twelve-minute film, a meditative contemplation on utopian imagination, overlaps of reality and fiction, and the convergence of biological and material configurations, uses anachronism as a powerful tool to ask questions about the nature of our past and the possibilities for our future. 

Note: Musical score composed by Lionel Marchetti.

Petites Planètes is an ongoing project comprising films, music recordings, cinema performances, immersive installations, and photographic artworks. An independent production company created by French artists Priscilla Telmon and Vincent Moon, Collection Petites Planètes’ aim is to explore the boundaries between cinema, music, and expanded forms of modern rituals. Their vision moves between the realms of documentary creation, ethnographic research, and filmic experimentation.

In exploring the poetry at heart of personal and collective rituals, they have undertaken filming and expeditions to every continent to collaborate with hundreds of communities around the world.

Aadhar explores human dependency on technology, reflecting on the way technology has altered behaviours and lifestyles. The artist observes her father’s shaking hands holding his cell – phone, switching from one app to another, facing a constant stream of videos and messages from social media. Even though he is struggling, he holds on to this device, which has now become an intimate part of his life. The artist questions why the “noise of technology” is such a normal part of contemporary life, and whether it serves as a convenient distraction from the silence and loneliness inside each of us. She highlights human fragility in a world saturated with technology– our dependence on it, and its undeniable hold over our senses. As this cacophony of information, opinions and entertainment invades our personal spaces, the lines blur and we are left to contend with its impact on our minds and bodies.

Water Exchanges opens with a dialogue between various drawings of water by the artist. On one level the viewers are asked to consider the preciousness of a single drop of water, and then move on to ripples, rivers and ocean waves. These drawings reference water as Nature, as a stakeholder in the environment in her own right. 

In the next part of Water Exchanges water is regarded as a resource with an integral role in human life. The personal is the political – the microcosms of daily strivings to get potable water to drink, and clean water for all our other activities are seen as iterations of larger worldwide concerns about the ownership of water on state, national and international scales can be observed. 

The final sequence of Water Exchanges celebrates the aesthetic pleasures of water, in a ballet of ice and steam. But the historical imperative comes into play here too – in the melting ice that the artist films in her kitchen are the echoes of melting glaciers in the vast if shrinking polar regions of the world.