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  Lost Text

Navjot Altaf

                       
                   
 
  at 
 

The Guild, Alibaug


 

  February 25 - April 1,  2018

10.00 am to 6.30 pm


all days open
 

. WORKS   . WORKS - 2 . PRESS RELEASE
   
 
The Guild Art Gallery is delighted to present a series of works by Navjot Altaf from her latest project Lost Textat The Guild, Alibaug.

 

  “Temporality of memory is uncertain.​ ​Memory plays truant.​ One pens down one’s diary notes for reference, record, archive or as an aid to the events and happenings gone by. ​Several segments ​of ​my Bastar diaries jotted over ​the ​years, ​when transcribed digitally​, were corrupted,​ converting the text into an arbitrary mix of numerals, alphabets,  symbols, used and underused punctuation marks and diacritics (acute accent) that are used with alphabets of many modern written languages based in Latin, Cyrillic and Greek scripts - making it cryptic.

    While going over these pages​,​ I found that even though the text structure ​is destroyed and it has lost ​its ​chronology​,​ sequence and clarity as the surrounding text has disappeared, interestingly​ enough,​ its disorganized fragmented patterns of words (further broken by the computer’s selective memory​, ​vocabulary and punctuation markings) brings forth narratives out of its meant context ​or acts as clues to excavate the hidden meanings and creates new meanings that may or may not have been intended in the first place. The highlighted word on each page is the word I spotted first. Spotting more words could activate the viewer’s participation in creating a sense of being involved to the creative process, building ideas and meanings through their own lens of experience.   

   Through this text based work I play with the play of technology and play of memory to create new propositions.​ I have always been intrigued by the​ ​visual aesthetics in ancient scriptures on stones and though most of us cannot​ ​decipher them,​they have been​ ​recorded on stones at some point of time in different places in history. The photographs are taken during my travels in and outside India over the years.

   ​The viewer is invited to write down their thoughts, arising out of any reading of the ancient scriptures or diary notes, any word that interests/inspires them to think differently and brings forth a different line of thought or an idea,​which can be penned down in a diary provided for viewer’s participation”. -  Navjot Altaf

Navjot Altaf has exhibited extensively in Museum and institutional context including a number of public art projects and was granted an international award for Public Art Project in 2013. She has presented academic papers on issues of environment and anthropogenic at universities, Museums and other forums.

Her works have been collected by Museums, including Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Fukuoka Asian Art  Museum  and other institutions.

We look forward to welcoming you at The Guild, Alibaug.

For any enquiries, write to us at 
theguildart@yahoo.com / theguildart@gmail.com 

 

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