Site Specific I Let’s Proceed in Parts I Instituto Cervante, Delhi
2016
Presented by Exhibit 320
Wooden Boards, Nails and Glue on Floor
A work within Let’s Proceed in Parts, a solo presentation at Instituto Cervantes, Delhi and presented by Exhibit 320 in 2016. This site-specific work emerged from my interest in finding poetry within architectural space. The said exhibition took its conceptual departure from the ideas of time, movement, and rupture in the poetry of Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío, especially his poem titled Vamos Por Partes (or Let’s proceed in parts) (Abrojos, 1887) and a critical prologue on him depicted in Mexican writer Octavio Paz’s famous volume Selected Poems by Rubén Darío (1965). Stemming from these prompts, the exhibition acts as a means towards creating a space accentuating the oscillation of the eternal trap of time, which manifests the amalgamation of cosmic diversity.
This site specific work germinated from a simple, unsaid but commonly followed architectural convention, where the floors are expected to be flat and walls only straight. Wanting to rupture this very assumption, the work aimed towards subtly disrupting the subconscious knowledge of the body as it navigates a familiar yet unexpected terrain. The exhibition space was divided into different parts, where upon entering the basement level of the building, the viewer encountered steep triangular platforms installed in the two opposite corners of the hall. The platforms gently rose from the existing floor, joining at the meeting points of adjacent walls and thereby creating an almost imperceptible slope. The intervention was deliberately matched to the color and materiality of the original floor, allowing it to remain concealed within the existing architecture and acting as the first encounter of distortion through visual senses. We often move through familiar spaces through a certain bodily expectation and awareness. For instance, a flat floor requires no conscious adjustment due to the absence of any additional pressure onto the body, but a sloped terrain immediately demands a change in balance, movement and spatial awareness to acclimate to the subsequent alteration. Masked within the space, the work deliberately causes a certain sense of unease and disorientation. Thereby forcing the viewer’s body to recalibrate upon encountering the unexpected, and subsequently causing a sensory disruption of the body and distortion of the space through an experience of perceptual displacement.
Link to the project https://parulguptastudio.com/work/solo-project-lets-proceed-in-parts/
