pari-bartan:
cup presents tea
Broken paper cup, tea
2023, 2024
Pari-bartan (which means transformation) is premised on how kalpana or imagination becomes hypothesis or pari-kalpana. While pari-kalpana, or pari-bartan, wants to be objective, they are nevertheless ideologically contained in (subjectivities, or biases, or choices of) the institution that foundations a real, through unspoken spectral bodies of laws or norms. The institution operates as an undeclared constitution that accesses reality for us; and so the body, of that which constitutes us, is cut open.
The work is premised on the saying: “They break the utensil that feeds them” (original in Hindi: “Jis thaali me khaate hain, usi me ched karte hain”). The saying shames those who criticise their constitutive institution, like their nation, or their family, or the entity that buys their labour.
