of belief and belonging
a series
of Belief and Belonging grew from my interest in performative acts that unfold in quiet, private spaces.
I look at the female body as the other, threatening and suspended in a parallel realm.
The way we occupy space becomes its own language and when no one is watching, we forget the way we perform. I began to wonder how those gestures, the ones tied to everyday performances, rituals, could remain once the act was over.
The forms I have created for these series are made to imbue the memory of intimate moments, undocumented performances, private rituals, all absorbed into the deceptive stillness of the white tiles.
Pehla Qadam (First Step)
Concrete slab, concrete bricks, white-glazed terracotta tiles, water, soap dish
93.4 cm x 64 cm x 16.2 cm
Baithak (Sitting Space)
Plywood, white-glazed terracotta tiles, mirror
93.4 cm x 105.1 cm x 96.5 cm
I keep returning to questions of what remains unseen.
How do purity and impurity coexist in a space?
I think about the rituals of cleansing that mark our daily lives: when does the simple act of washing become a ritual? When do you decide that you are clean and you feel clean? When does repetition turn into religious, spiritual or physical forms of purity?
I think of these ideas while making the work, pressing each tile and grouting each crevice.
I want it to be clean, pristine, perfect.
Among the needs to perfect, I realised how much of it I could control and how much of it was left to acceptance.
No one tile was the same shade of white as the next.
Ghusl Khana (Spiritual Bathing Area)
Plywood, white-glazed terracotta tiles
87.3 cm x 182.8 cm x 76.7 cm
Roohani Qadam (Spiritual Step)
Plywood, aluminum sheets, white-glazed terracotta tiles, mirrors
106.9 cm x 102.1 cm x 102.6 cm
I see these sculptures as living entities; vessels that hold memory, residue and silence.
For me, they are almost suspended somewhere in between, like a pause between this world and what connects us to the other.
Kona (Corner)
Plywood, white-glazed terracotta tiles, mirrors, glass bottles, rose-water
61 cm x 61 cm x 91.4 cm
Taas (Chalice/Vessel)
MDF wood, white-glazed terracotta tiles
60 cm x 125.2 cm x 60 cm