Domestic Flights

At the centre of a show are homes that are both contested spaces and sites of safety and intimacy, finds Kristine Michael.

- Kristine Michael

From the 4th of March to the 18th of April, Threshold Art Gallery, New Delhi, hosted yet another reflective and thought-provoking exhibition. Titled Nest – Gharonda, Basera, Nid, Ghar, it was a group show by ten artists working in diverse media including painting, mixed media and sculpture. Curated by poet and critic Prayag Shukla and gallerist Tunty Chauhan, the exhibition invited artists to reflect on the notion of home as a nest, not just as a static place of perpetual safety and security but also as a site that leads to the formation of identity and provides nourishment. A home is associated with one’s origins and family ties, and it is also the space which you leave and to which you return. Especially pertinent in the current lockdown scenario, the home becomes both a refuge and a setting consumed by apprehension and angst.

In the curatorial note, renowned Hindi writer S.H. Vatsyayan ‘Ajneya’ is quoted as saying that a home must be rebuilt anew, endlessly, just as birds build new nests each season. There’s a rich literary and artistic tradition in which the bird’s nest is used as a metaphor for home. Poets and artists are always one step ahead in the understanding that metaphors can be interpreted in novel and strange ways.

The domestic experience becomes a rich background for artists to explore – from the home as a vulnerable, fraught and contested space to a site of intimacy, safety and spirituality. This exhibition represents diverse practices that voice anxieties regarding one’s home, yet all seek to untangle ideas about ‘making home’ and ‘feeling at home’, and question the notion of the ‘family gaze’ and the ‘homely image’.