The Books
A series of three books, to be read from anywhere and in any order, inviting interpretation.
Memories of Bengal and my grandparents feel distant yet close, existing in mere moments scattered across the thirty years of my life. My mind assumes a sepia tone, and loses clarity as I reach for them. The more I try to recall their specificities, the more they elude me. Every memory is accompanied and overshadowed by the emotion of it. It is the emotions that remain stark as time passes, not the images.
Given Calcutta’s deeply intertwined history with colonialism in India and my current base in London, I exist in two worlds at once, with an overlap and merging of images from the present with the past. My grandparents told me stories of what it felt like to exist amid the British in India, and I remember these as I live amid the British in their country. I both critique and relish the differences and find myself forgetting while I grow, growing while forgetting.
In this work, I bring my past into my fleeting present and vice versa. I visualise the space between objectivity and subjectivity that memories tend to occupy, using language as a mediator between time, place and image.
A gentle reminder to
turn on the sound!
Three artists’ books were created with the images and prose developed for this part of the work. The video uses the audio from videos my mother would send me from her visits to Calcutta. These are videos of my grandfather singing with my aunts and mother, my grandfather reciting a poem and my family singing without my grandfather, after his passing.
My grandfather used to write diaries at the end of each day. I never read them but always wondered what he wrote. How did he have enough to write every day? I have always struggled with keeping a diary or recording my thoughts but through this work, I realised I was keeping a diary in my own way. The work became books, rather than starting out as them.
Memories don’t exist in linear time unless we begin to describe or vocalise them. Nor do they exist as clear images, unless we consciously put them together. They are, however, omnipresent as elements that shape and guide us on a daily basis. By fragmenting and arranging images and prose in the form of these publications, the reader is invited to make sense of the memories I draw from, and read the text in any order they wish. The images slowly reveal themselves, as a rhythm is found in the turning of the pages. However, the abstract nature of the images does not always spell out what is being seen. This is left up to the viewer to interpret. After all, one can never transmit a memory fully and can only hope to paint a picture. The viewer becomes instrumental in the reception of the work.
The images below along with the prose were manually printed in lithography and letterpressed as individual sets, which were put together to create the books.
You told me with wide eyes
About the things you saw in
43, eighty years old, barely
Eight at the time. Your eight
Year old self, hiding under the
Tables as the sirens blared,
For the planes were coming.
You taught me how to make
Paper boats, did you ever
Make paper planes?
Or did you forget, as you did
My name, the ‘child’ from your
Childhood?
At twenty eight, I’ve chased the
Sun; and sat in planes to live in
Lands where the ruins of your
Childhood lay scattered.
I had a drink in a bunker the
Other day.
I’m told I will do well here.
Click HERE to read more.
All images are hand-drawn with charcoal, ink, graphite or soluble graphite. They are overlaid with textures and manipulated digitally before printing in lithography. The prose was written as a response to the images, rather than vice versa.
Above: Lithographic prints of fragmented artworks with letterpressed text in the middle. The text is hidden inside the folds and is revealed upon interaction.
Below: Images of the three artist’s books. Centre: 27.7 cm (H) x 12 cm (L) x 12 cm (B). Left: 19 cm (H) x 68.7 sq. cm. Right: 19 cm x 273.1 sq. cm.
Below: Printing process for the books. Click on the arrow button to view more.
