“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
