INSIDE THE MELANCHOLIC OBJECT
(AN ELEGY FOR A MIGRANT WORKER)
2012
The 19th century history of cotton and coffee is conjured to confront the formation of the other. ​ Both the materials are replete with certain unclaimed truths about body and labor. ​ Monotony and repetition as processes are drawn to re-contextualize the metaphoric potential of these materials. ​ These physical, laborious processes are layered with the residual aspects of liquids and the suspended weight of masses. ​ Surface treatment of ‘dyeing’, the process of coloring cloth, is conjoined with its antonym, ‘fading’, where, the used, and the worn, are seen as representations of many, often disregarded, bodies. ​
Through, the spatial and haptic languages of sculpture, the viewer’s body is brought closer inside the abstract spaces of desolation and melancholia. ​