a scene from where you live
Scenograph: Drawings and photographs2022
a dancer visits the workshop of a silversmith to get a septum piercing, a dog and a parrot talk, seepage from a drain pipe grows wild flora on brick walls, two different jatis or caste interact.
only 50 years ago, such a scene took place on this exact place, but today, nobody knows.
Culture has preserved the figure of the dancer and the ornaments made by the artisan, as alienated musuem artefacts; but the scene from where (we live) this culture emerges is missing because this scene is an inter-caste-action, not part of archival memory, public or private.
Caste segregation maintained on the stage of art and archives, further dissociates the reality of workers, which otherwise is inter-caste and unsegregated.
The missing scene, like an unspoken law, sustains the spoken taboo of inter-caste cultural assimilation as material work/labour is not considered part of culture.
Caste segregation maintained on the stage of art and archives, further dissociates the reality of workers, which otherwise is inter-caste and unsegregated.
The missing scene, like an unspoken law, sustains the spoken taboo of inter-caste cultural assimilation as material work/labour is not considered part of culture.
part of Elephant in the Room: Infrastructures of Signaling in the Arts, a book published by Conflictorium (IN) and Stroom Den Hague (NL), 2023
