Mapped perspectives

A much-awaited annual event, this year, the Krishnakriti Art and Culture Festival revolves around mapping and cartography. Notably, the event welcomes eminent artists from across the country to present their work as well as to experience the magic of the four-day celebration where art rules the roost.

Brought together by Goa-based curator Lina Vincent, the show subsumes multiple art shows, panel discussions and screenings along with other sessions. Mapping Frontiers is one such show, held at Kalakriti Art Gallery and Goethe Zentrum, which brings forth an eclectic mix of works rendered in varied media.
Instantly noteworthy here is a life-size wooden bed created by Avijit Dutta. The bedding has been intricately carved out of wood and the artist has established minute details of folds and creases to perfection. The treatment given to the piece suggests the presence of someone who lay there for a while and left, without making the bed. Interestingly, the concept behind creating it was to  describe the aftermath of migration and the nostalgia of being away from a beloved place.

Equally enigmatic is Charmi Gada Shah’s work, which excels in intriguing the viewers. Explaining her concept, Charmi says, “My work engages with the passage of time and the subsequent shifts that have occurred in the meaning and functioning of architectural forms.” Her work comprises a set of architectural constructions in a 3D format that look abandoned and desolate.

Sujith S.N. too talks about the changes that have taken place in architectural planning in the contemporary context. “My paintings broadly map out the radically changing spatial rhythms and the territorial disciplining of urban landscapes,” he mentions. Sujith’s work depicts a huge mound, perhaps a man-made mountain filled up with architectural constructions. Around the structure is a vast flat ground embedded with few structures that have been joined using multiple linear criss-crossing — which divides the terrain into an interesting lattice work and looks like a map on the whole. 

Undoubtedly, maps, and the way we use them, have undergone a process of transformation. Where earlier they were hand-painted, modern-day maps are digitally enhanced, detailed and extremely precise. Reinstating the importance of maps, Nidhi Khurana, who has exhibited her work too, says, “I started drawing maps to convey my anxiety of getting lost in the world. My research on mapping led me to discover the fact that there is a lot of power contained in these pictorial graphs of places.”

Another gripping horizontal composition by Vinita Karim, titled ‘Odyssey’, weaves a simplified picture of an urban city. The free-flowing geometrical lines encompass the upper section of the space and divide it into numerous intricate, architectural segments. A series of tree skeletons support the upper section of the work, lending to the expression a strong stance.