As someone who often feels like a head-scratcher-in-the-face-of-minimalism, I’m so glad to have seen this work! It’s mesmerizing and I have no problem understanding why you (and so many others) are drawn to it. It’s moving, in some ways that I understand quite clearly and in others that are nebulous but no less meaningful for being so. I especially love that you shared the background of the location. It adds layers of context that make me wish I’d been there in person. Also, this line will stick with me: “The reason it’s so beautiful in its collapse, I think, is because, like us, it has resilience and resurrection in its bones.”
The end piece "The Collapse" and your tying it into the pandemic is what connected me most. The collapsed remains of a strong, solid presence in the world is exactly how I feel, as well as the question as to whether it can ever be rebuilt.
The installation resonated with me for very different reasons. My book is on the relation between LGBT rights in India and its complicated and messy entanglements with neoliberalism and the rise of Hindu nationalism. For the cover of my book, I wanted something abstract rather than literal. I did not want conventional signifiers of India: (flags, monuments etc) or queerness (pride parades) or Indian queerness (Indian/rainbow flags at pride parades!). I wanted something abstract, conceptual, and unconventional. When I came across Bawa's images, I was immediately struck by how the shapes in the installation captured the complicated “triangles” and “knots” that I am theorizing in my book. The pink color of the installation also indexes my book title in more indexical ways.
As someone who often feels like a head-scratcher-in-the-face-of-minimalism, I’m so glad to have seen this work! It’s mesmerizing and I have no problem understanding why you (and so many others) are drawn to it. It’s moving, in some ways that I understand quite clearly and in others that are nebulous but no less meaningful for being so. I especially love that you shared the background of the location. It adds layers of context that make me wish I’d been there in person. Also, this line will stick with me: “The reason it’s so beautiful in its collapse, I think, is because, like us, it has resilience and resurrection in its bones.”
The end piece "The Collapse" and your tying it into the pandemic is what connected me most. The collapsed remains of a strong, solid presence in the world is exactly how I feel, as well as the question as to whether it can ever be rebuilt.
What a beautiful write up on Avantika's work. I had the honor of using an image of "A Pink Scaffold" on the cover of my recently published book: https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810143623/pink-revolutions/
The installation resonated with me for very different reasons. My book is on the relation between LGBT rights in India and its complicated and messy entanglements with neoliberalism and the rise of Hindu nationalism. For the cover of my book, I wanted something abstract rather than literal. I did not want conventional signifiers of India: (flags, monuments etc) or queerness (pride parades) or Indian queerness (Indian/rainbow flags at pride parades!). I wanted something abstract, conceptual, and unconventional. When I came across Bawa's images, I was immediately struck by how the shapes in the installation captured the complicated “triangles” and “knots” that I am theorizing in my book. The pink color of the installation also indexes my book title in more indexical ways.