Phase-I
“To Navigate: setting in motion some responses to this pandemic and change”
“To Navigate: setting in motion some responses to this pandemic and change”
Phase-I
Phase-I is a video installation on the facade of the Artist’s residence in Delhi, projected from the balcony, for 7 evenings starting March 8, 2021. The projections will change everyday and work created from the 3 geographies over most of 2020 will be shown.
Live documentation of viewers and passers-by engaging with the installation during this phase will be pieced together for phase-2, which will eventually spin into further artworks.
Venue: The space is in South Delhi in a locality called S block, Greater Kailash-1, it is an old house from the 60s, white with a brown gate – with lots of trees and a bamboo covered boundary wall. It should be easy to spot as the style, scale and aesthetic of the house is now an anomaly in the fast moving busy commercial and residential area of “G.K-1”
The house is situated on the busy main road, Opposite M block market and abutting a construction site, witnessing many passers-by and dense vehicular traffic.
Day 7
And day 7 of phase-I comes to a close! The last 6 days and today have been exciting to engage with the passer-by and documenting it all!
Day 6
We're playing deep time today and have seen more passers-by (than we saw on Monday) stop and look at the tide coming in. There is an almost meditative quality to today's installation - in the midst of all the fumes, noise, movement on the GK1 M block main road.
We're looking at the elderly and children passing by later than usual. Maybe because it is a Saturday evening. The main road is as usual hosting bumper-to-bumper traffic. One elderly gentleman in particular stops and stares at Chale Island.
He then brings out his laptop and starts marketing cruise holidays to us. Interesting spin off!
Day-6
Documentation and photographs by Alina Tiphagne and Kathy Joy
Day 5
Timelapse day-5
Documentation and photographs by Alina Tiphagne and Kathy Joy
The following is an excerpt from a short consversation in Hindi (translated) between two passers-by:
Person 1: "Yeh upar kya chal raha hai? upar dekh ke kuch ho raha hai kya?"
"what do you think this is and are you feeling anything by looking up?"
Person 2: "Art hai. Art"
"It is art. Art"
Person 3: "Video chal raha hai"
" There's a video going on."
Person 2: "Art hai. Accha lag raha hai isse dekh kar."
"It is art. It feels good to look at it here."
"The project seeks to communicate work about transient spaces, and engage with the ‘passer-by’ as an audience – extended beyond cultural and institutional spaces and networks, to a space created by morphing the lines on either side of the boundary. Attempted to be both literal and metaphorical - this work is defined by its space and surroundings, yet dissimilarly, it does not intervene in a public space."
- Himani Gupta
Day 4
Timelapse day-4
Documentation and photograph by Alina Tiphagne and Kathy Joy
"One of the most engaging materials during this time was an ornamental house plant called “Calathea Mosaica” - which formed the reference for the work created at Peel House. It is also known as the “network plant” because of its intricate, cartographic appearance. It felt like a fitting visual to navigate the times. The sky paintings measure time as each day passes by."
- Himani Gupta
Day 3
Timelapse day-3
Documentation and photograph by Alina Tiphagne and Kathy Joy
Peel House is a former Metropolitan Police training quarter dating back to 1907, located in a conservation area and, although not a listed building, Westminster City Council has identified this as being ‘a building of unlisted merit'.
“Gradually studying the information in my immediate environment helped explore my interest in the duality of space - that Peel House was both a public and private building at different points in history, measuring time by sunset colours at home and contributing to forming social memory through art. Thinking about these things again,in a new environment, felt like a natural progression to my ongoing and recent work created in Delhi."
-Himani Gupta
Day 2
Timelapse from day-2
Documentation and photograph by Alina Tiphagne and Kathy Joy
"While willfully stuck on Chale Island,Kenya, I used visual material in my immediate living space such as mangroves, the sea—depth and tides, skies to respond to a new understanding of time—images created were in video, photos and in grayscale drawings on paper."
- Himani Gupta
"Kenya was also home for some part of the Pandemic. Once I could travel, after clearing my immigration status whilst locked down in London - I set out to Africa from Europe. The work that I created whilst in Kenya was based on my underlying reactions to transitions, moving, waiting.”
- Himani Gupta
Day 1
Timelapse from day-1
Documentation and photograph by Alina Tiphagne and Kathy Joy
“ ‘To Navigate’ is my response to this period in time, developed over several months and drawn from personal circumstances that have involved essential travel between 3 continents - Asia, Europe and Africa, moving homes and trying to hold on to routine and plans. The work developed has been in-situ and site specific, deriving material and form from the site/ or ‘home’ at the time."
- Himani Gupta
Deep time teaser
Chale Island - deep time
26th October, 7:45 am EAT
deep time is a fragmented slow and true motion video of the tide coming in on Chale Island, Kenya, one morning in late October.
deep time is part fantasy and part reality. It represents a blurring of lines between what is living and the divine/ a utopian force. In geologic time, the humans have become the force, the agents of an unknown that is greater than ourselves.
The work is played in a loop of 60 minutes.
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Stills from day-1
Photograph by Alina Tiphagne