Site Specific  I  Sarai Reader 09  I  Devi Art Foundation
2012-2013
Curated by RAQS Media Collective
Ink, Hair and Glue on the Surface

Sarai Reader 09 was a proposal based project that was curated by Raqs Media Collective and its exhibition supported by Devi Art Foundation in 2012-2013. It followed a critical shift in my practice, as it was the first time I consciously began to think of architectural space itself as a material. “To work with space but not occupy any particular space” was the crux of my proposal for the project. Over a duration of three months, I activated four spaces, allowing each spatial encounter to inform and shape the work, this being the third one.

The second space activated within this site-specific project was in the project room, functioning as a space where people primarily came to read. The room was characterized by its semi black painted walls with a single window existing within the structure, and opening onto the exterior. When viewed from within the wide berth of this broadly spaced window opening, a brick wall with its multiple tilts and shifts in alignment could be observed outside. This site-specific engagement explored and extended my earlier work exhibited at my MA degree show at Nottingham Trent University, UK in 2011. Here, I directly painted white color into the broad width of the window’s cavity that was originally black, subsequently intervening upon the surface using pen, hair and glue as material. I realised a transformation of the space with a mere change in color, with the white now accentuating the subjected section, demanding attention in its own right. The concept of the window, instead of its inherent quality of looking through, now became a thing to look at, subtly reversing its conventional function. Thereby, mutating the nature and structure of architecture through perceptual reconfiguration.

Link to the project https://parulguptastudio.com/work/project-sarai-reader-09/