Of boats, walls and spaces... projection video

Title: Of boats, walls and spaces...

A boat floats on water -- it is a space within another space and is a metaphor for movements, departures and arrivals.
Children play with paper boats, they dream. Dreaming leads one to fathoming the unknown.
As my primary concerns in my work is associated with the 'gaze', especially the gaze of the post-colonial subject in a city that was once ruled by the European rulers, this project is an exploration of a post- colonial city dweller's gaze at an industry which has many connections with the colonial times (the coming of the European's through water ways; trading through water ways and connecting the port cities together in a common chain), and is consequently an account of a journey in different times and spaces. It explores a relationship between a moribund art/ industry and the many reminiscences it echoes. The boat making industry is situated away from the main city in a village along the banks of the Hoogly. Therefore journeying into the area and bringing back experiences to the city is being in two different times and spaces. Coming back to the city inevitably changes and shapes the artist's/ post-colonial subject's perspective. How the mind's eye picks up the inevitable cues and projects them on the colonial architecture as a stream of consciousness kindles his recent memory of his journey into the boat makers' life.
The venue where the exhibition takes place is a lawn of a colonial art institution which is situated between a museum and the institution's buildings. Museums are contemporary spaces where traditions are glass-fronted. It is where one witnesses the past in dead objects. It is a public space to experience time within a space. At present, museums function in an archaic/non-interactive manner -- a mindset that has been inherited from colonised times. Researching or reviewing is hardly entertained. On the other hand, wooden boat-making as a craft is fading with newer technologies threatening its existence.
All of these are elements that my project tries to weave together. The documentation of the process of boat-making projected on the outer wall of the Indian Museum evokes the debate about private and public spaces while a book cabinet filled with paper boats tries to mimic a museum -- full of memories. One of the art college windows opposite the museum wall acts as a TV monitor that plays out a conversation with a boat-maker -- a dialogue about his craft becomes a dialogue between walls, objects and spaces. The image taking on the shape of the two buildings' architectonic parts -- the blinds of the windows, the arches, the walls -- dissipate as fragmented images and echo the loss.

Medium:
Video in loop (00:07:30:06) projected with 4,000 lumens LCD projector;
video in loop (00:06:05:04) for the window;
installation with paper boats and found cupboard

Saikat Surai
Kolkata
March 2011

Category:

Education

Tags:

• v9
• Boat
• Project
• 2
• pal
• widescreen
• 1
• Bright