Soul Purpose -Channel 6

Sheet Happen -Time Out Bangalore

One Monday last month, as the city slipped into the bustling rhythms of the morning, Dimple Shah began supervising the unloading of 15 boxes from a truck that had driven up to Gallery Sumukha. She was just emerging from about with conjunctivitis, which she contracted before undertaking a train journey to the city from Baroda– but with a tight schedule leading up to the opening of her latest show Catharsis in a Forbidden Zone, Shah couldn't afford to let physical discomfort derail her work.

Over the next few days the artist had the formidable job of unpacking 400 kgs of material and getting her show ready. Possibly the most daunting task – setting up the extraordinary piece titled “Catharsis Chamber” – a shower cubicle that she designed, surrounded by PVC curtains and shelves made of acrylic sheets. Once the basic structure of the cubicle was ready, Shah would have to line the shelves with 1,800 medicine bottles, each one filled with either ash, salt, hair or nail clippings, to create a room for a viewer to enter, a space permeated with a sense of privacy and almost ritualistic calm.

“I initially wanted to use pieces of my own nails for the work,” said Shah, who, while talking about her work, veers between earnestness and giggly delight (the former, in this case). “I started collecting clippings two years ago.” Does that mean she’s been planning the details of this show for the last two years? “No,” she clarified. “I just have a habit of collecting things which I might decide to use. I would have used my own clippings, but in a few days I found that they had started attracting ants, so I threw them away. I don’t know why ants were interested in my nails. Maybe the ants inBaroda[where Shah studied, at the Maharaja Sayajirao University] are a little mad.”

The clippings that finally became a part of the show were artificial, procured by Shah after scouring dozens of beauty shops. But there was a problem. “They looked terrible, too artificial and white. My friend and I sat and painted each individual clipping so that it looked a little more natural.” What about the hair in the other bottles? “That’s my hair,” said Shah. “I collected it over two years.”

The sense of theatricality in Shah’s installation work is perhaps explained by the fact that, for many years, she’s had a parallel interest in performance art. Through her training inBaroda, she held performance art shows in which she herself featured, often rendered unrecognisable by blotches of paint. And over the years, photographs of these performances showed up in Shah’s print works and paintings, along with other traces of herself – an image of an eye, a hand print, a diary entry.

“You might enjoy this,” said Shah, momentarily distracted in the middle of going over slides of her work, and flipping open a notebook crammed with preparatory notes and sketches.

A glance through its pages suggested an almost obsessive bent of mind. Reams of notes about psychoanalytic concepts jostle for space with conceptual diagrams, such as the ones of imaginary scientific apparati that Shah ended up fabricating out of copper for Forbidden Zone.

In creating these apparati, and, indeed, in all her explorations into the show’s central theme of alchemy, Shah seems to be responding to a need to explain the inexplicable, and to organise the chaotic storm of ideas that rage through her mind. And while some of her earlier works can bewilder the viewer just because of the sheer number of elements used, in newer works like “Catharsis Chamber” these impulses are expressed simply, with an immediate and undeniable power.

Showing off the sketch of a piece of apparatus, which didn’t make it to the final show, Shah said it was a challenge to get vendors to carry out her orders. “They go crazy when I show them what I want done,” she said. “They’re used to normal orders. I have to spend days with them. They eat my head, and I eat their heads.”

These tedious transactions more than exhausted her, Shah admitted. “Every single work seems to take a toll on my body,” she said, gesturing towards the example of her infected eye. Then, a smile appearing, and her tone growing kinder, “But it doesn’t matter. After all, art is about hard work.”

Ajay Krishnan
Time Out Bangalore
October 01 2010 7.14am

BANGALORE GARDENS RELOADED

No Space To Escape -"TO BE OR NOT TO BE"

As the city growing bigger and bigger everyday and more and more people migrating from various parts of the country and making Bangalore as their home. This constant inflow is leading to a very different transition of development that the city is experiencing leaving the city in a chaotic, claustrophobic and suffocating space. Argument can be good development or a bad development but fact remains that the city has changed drastically and slowly becoming the city like others without any identity except being just a concrete habitat. The cityscape of Bangalore has changed to accommodate flyovers, buildings, roads and metro etc. slowly and rapidly replacing greenery with concrete.

This installation work basically evoke the feeling of helplessness of situation ambushed, suddenly attacked like situation where no space to escape and exit (a trap). In this work the audience will be forced to confront the situation which they normally do it in everyday life subconsciously, but here they will consciously face it directly, there by alerting there mind to counter the question and seek for answers.Visually this work is in form of concrete box, inside the box there will be 360 degree view of existing city they live in, which is with cement and other material. the work  bring in main essential characteristic of city in minimal form. The experience within the box (claustrophobic and suffocating space leaving no space to breath) represent the psychological situation of mind the mental space.

Over powering of concrete and its inevitable super imposed presence in our daily life which is symbolically represents mans thought and body slowly turning into concrete form with no space for nature and not being in touch with ourselves. 

The installation is  memorabilia of the changing phase. The smell of concrete initially will attract the audience hiding danger ahead. This work is a presentation of the dilemma - Development (a distortion) – Good, Bad or Necessary. My idea is to bring the attention where we really need to look and what we really need to think about? This work provokes us to question ourselves where we are leading to? Is this road leading to Utopian land or land where there is no space to live?

Dimple B Shah 2013

For Reconciliation

Sethu Samudram Project, India-Srilanka collaborative project curated by Suresh Jayaram

It has been some years since #1 Shanthi Road started the Sethu Samudram project allowing interaction between local artists and their Sri Lankan counterparts from Theertha. In the face of earlier and grave recent history linking both countries as well as effecting in conflict, it has been dominated by geographic, socio-political and cultural issues, their pronouncement being as important as seeking a common ground and reconciliation. 

Although sadly, art still does not reach anyone beyond the Art circles proper, such ventures remain vital. Previous efforts of the artists who often participate continuously and of Suresh Jayaram, the moving spirit behind it all, have contributed then to their fleshing out during the recent joint residency, whose character was led by his curatorial guidance or perhaps only stimulus. 

The resulting exhibition from November 1st to 9th had two young participants from both lands led by the desire for overcoming the three decades of a complex and destructive war by reference, evocation and by drawing the onlooker into the mainly interactive installations. 

The Bangalore artists seemed to approach the task in a compassionate and encompassing way. With much immediacy in visual and emotive terms, Dimple Shah, using the act of erasure of suffering images and by gifting sea salt, engaged the opponent aggressiveness, victims and perpetrators of violence on all the sides, her own gesture and the visitor’s active response through an appeal for mercy and at the same time for forgiveness.

The work of  Prakash L was sincere too, perturbed and empathic, whereas the metaphorical content partly came through, as the blood running through the tubes forming a soldier’s boot, menacing over crematorium shots spoke of rebirth and renewal. Yet it partly remained unclear and unconvincing. One would have wished for an equally loaded and forgiveness-seeking position from the Sri Lankans who, however, preferred a cooler, statement-like, approach. 

“A Story of Dhal and Onion” by Prasanna Ranabahu and Lalith Manage was an accordion book with words and photographic prints alluding to the 1983 war with its ideological, commercial and psychological aspects whose realities, though, needed elucidation here. 

Manage’s T-shirts for sale calling for contact through the use of Sinhala, Tamil, Kannada and English scripts along with rangoli dotted lines was a nice but somewhat over-used idea.

Marta Jakimowicz

19 November 2012,  Deccan Herald,Bangalore.

Photographs by - B.S. Shivaraju (Cop Shiva)

Saffron Border - Live Performance at Kanoria Art Center

This performance addresses socio political situations in Gujarat, India, done in 2003 a year later communal massacre happened in Godhra. The communal violence took thousands of lives and many were left homeless. This massacre unfolded right in front of my eyes and I went through many horrific experiences and I tried to bring in my traumatic experience through this performance. The experience during the riots was terrifying. The city on fire, being surrounded by sensitive areas, the experience of  Gas cylinder bursting in neighboring lane from the burning houses, Milk man coming in middle of night, black commandos patrolling on streets. Hearing heart breaking stories of terror and violence’s where people were brutally killed by mobs, Women and children who were tortured and killed. Groups of mob came in hundreds and thousands killing and looting the people, houses and shops. Experiences of all this in my closed room with fear of that this can also happen to me anytime.

This experience of fear amplified with time as I could not see any news of the situation as there was no TV and with no sign of slowing down of riots in the city or in neighboring town and villages. I was only relieved from this situation and traumatic experience after the curfew was called off in four days. The city looked very different after that riots, there were hundreds of small houses in next lane belonging to one community, they were all burnt to ashes, people were killed, some of them escaped and fled, only vacant, broken and burnt houses left. It is very difficult to explain in word the loss and pain of the people during these riots. 

The performance was a combination of audio-video and live performance. The video shoot was done in Baroda; the video was combination of my performance, passion of saffron color, fear, lost dreams and pain, the fragmented and random images from city life this shots were amalgamated which were juxtaposed in layers. The video was supported by continues audio of railways tracks, which constantly reminds the "Burning Train" incident in Godhra massacre.

There was an additional audio along with video, voice given by Mumbai based Artist Bharati Kapadia, the audio narrates my journey and obsession with saffron color the color of passion and strength and how this color later on turned into color of fear and terror.  Basically this performance raised some of the basic questions of common man/women, their fears, insecurity, communal harmony, freedom and socio-political rights in the society. Questions like why history keeps on repeating and when there will be an end to such bloody violence.

The live performance was an act to bring out the traumatic experience of a person who has got stuck in fire, with no escape situation, the traumatic experience, the pain of burning live, and the cry for life. I tried to bring in all this experiences, with ritualistic performance of symbolically marking the border in saffron color and placing green house inside this boundary. The performance was basically to invoke the feeling of fear and terror inside the burning house and bring out the traumatic experience in front of audience. Then in the end of performance the green house was burnt. This performance work performed in many cities (Ahmadabad, Mumbai and in Bangalore) in front of varied audience which gave me opportunity to reach out community in large there by spreading my concerns.

Great Expectation

Great Expectation speaks about silver. In history and present times, silver has always been connected to dreamy worlds and poetry. The lunar influence on metal also adds to the quality and character of the metals for example the black and white images of photography where silver is used to bring out the images, and it has also been linked to film industries’ “Silver Screen’. The word lunatic, which has lunar influences, is also linked with the moon.

Acrylic on canvas, 7 ft x 7 ft, 2010