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Hetal 
Chudasama

Reason Not- Knot
Site -specific Installation
"An Attic is a place to hide,
Objects and people Alike."
Reason Not - Knot Installation view

"Reason Not – Knot” is a site-specific installation and a performance project executed during an International artist’s residency at the Embassy of Foreign Artists Geneva, 2017. I was provided with the attic of the residency building to use as a studio which later became the site for this installation and live action.

 

Apart from extra storage and sleeping space, the attics are the spaces for refuge for everything that doesn't quite fit in rest of the domestic space. Attics are places for discovery, creativity, secrecy, hiding. Atticks are also very non-Indian certainly for those who grew up in urban area with flat roofs. It is not my fault if I think of them as scared spaces, spaces were hushed conversations are hold, spaces that allowed lived to be in suspension during the last war.  But i have no reason to relate this space to such painful section of history.

 

The wooden beams of the attic created fantastic geometrical forms at each intersection. The idea was to measure the space with time, vacuum with air, shape with form, form with mass, and to direct the soft cylinder cushions  to settle between the sharp angular lines to be hushed .

 

An Attic is a Place to Hide
Presented at Embassy of Foreign Artist, Geneva
2017
Reason Not- Knot
Performance

"The attic is a space to hide"
Three members of the audience (all men) are invited to participate in the performance. They were instructed to stand at the three windows in the attic. Their upper torsos peeking outside the window while their feet remained grounded inside the attic.

I I contemplated a triangle – a powerful ancient symbol of creation. A triangle with its geometrical forces and mathematical pursuits. I’m at the center of this triangle, I have an in my hand an eye. I’m contemplating the time, and I invite others to join in and find a way to contemplate their own angles. Spoken words accompanied the performance through audio installations. Words that facilitate the rituals of absurdity. To think about a triangle is to venture into its angles, but then angles and angels are all the same. 

Hetal Chudasama _ Performance artist_ Reason Not - Knot_ Geneva_ 2017
Hetal Chudasama _ Performance artist_ Reason Not - Knot_ Geneva_ 2017
Hetal Chudasama _ Performance artist_ Reason Not - Knot_ Geneva_ 2017
Hetal Chudasama _ Performance artist_ Reason Not - Knot_ Geneva_ 2017
Performance Reason Not-Knot, Performance Still, Performed at Embassy of Foreign Artist Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, 2017

Text used as audio during the performance "Reason not - Knot".

How ultimate the “Eye” is

The eye with a vision

Minus the reason

 

Languidly locked in parades

On a perpetual drift.

Multitudes of civilized inquiries

Moving towards oblivion,

             And art…

             oh, art…

How art thou?

 

I still enjoy the color of the coffee

The bulge of abundant cliches

The mystery of being here and after

Mortality only brings more slavery.

 

Still the dishes stay afloat in the sink,

The filthy floor, frightened fridge, tired toilets

Muddled shelves                 and

Babbling mouths…

Speech in Bubbles

Bubbles… bubbles… everywhere

On streets

On television

In classrooms

On weddings

On funerals

On the polls and trolls

On and on and on and on…                  

      But  

      My heavenly cow does mow, mow these days.

 

Fumes of Saturday night hysteria

Followed by Sugar-free Sundays.

 

Ladies,

Let’s wash those second-hand labels in tar

Legacies are found in those junk shops

Someone is selling discarded memories

Unwanted wardrobes - loose

On tedious voyages.

Let’s pack them in bundles and cherish.

Our suitcases shall travel far and wide.

Those landfills,

I ignore them, like everything else that,

Trials my conscience.

 

 

Amidst snow smudged hills

Hovers the lousiest smog

 

The rising sun commands

And all things are left un- punished

 

All but one,

Unfathomably erased dreams.

The consciousness of mortals

at stake. --------barbecue darling....

it's the day for the Barbeque

 

Even in the wake of a final hour

We shall stay obstinate :He said:

Arrest the light with ultimate audacity,

 

Some may rejoice     and

Be deeply buried

In to an unresolvable stupidity.

 

If banality had a colour,

           I wonder…

Which one from spectrum will

Be ready – to scarify its dignity?

-

 

Someone stole the cuckoo clock,

But the cuckoo remains,

           Untouched -

Adamant by the time itself.

Reason - Not the knotted one.

 

In the middle of the house

A flight ascends 

A secret door - leads the way

I climb up and an attic…

All muffled up in the low humming

Chorus of its axis.

 

 

                       “An attic is a space to hide

                        Objects and people alike”

 

A poet demands

The journey,

In an intellectual pursuit

           But watch -

The sheep are grazing in the field.

                                        

                        “An attic is a space to hide

                         Objects and people alike”

                    A N G E L S and A N G L E S

                        are all the same.

Three points can only be joined

In a singular way.

A deceiving corner

 “Triangle” was thought for

And a “Triangle” was fought for

A triangle is divine

A triangle is blasphemous

The divinity must be worshiped

                             Blasphemy…  

must not go unpunished

 

So there,

What is it about “I”, did I talk about?

I like you,

You like me,

We like each other,

Together,       we shall like others.

Together,       with   those  others.

We shall become -

Other themselves

Liked by ourselves.

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