There was something strange happening with the responses that artist Baiju Parthan sent us. A part of the last line was mysteriously getting gobbled up into the white infinite space of the page. If I pressed ‘delete’, a part of the swallowed line would appear. And if I tried to format it, it would simply not relent, like parents at the time of Corona, forcing us to reverse roles and relive our teenage years of ‘you can’t go out of the house’. Even retyping the words, or selecting that section seemed off-limits. ‘In an alternate universe I could have been a data scientist or a programmer specialising in algorithms,’ said Parthan and I wondered if I had entered this alternate universe – that on some level it feels like we are already living, #corona – and perhaps this was an algorithm that simply wouldn’t function in this reality. But Parthan also helpfully added, ‘Or I could be ‘The Fool’ on a Tarot card.’ I had to look that one up – the image is of a man standing on the edge of a cliff, looking nonchalantly upwards at the sky and not the abyss below, with the affirmation, ‘Out of nothing, all that is was made. The same creative power dwells in me also’.
In Parthan’s world, it isn’t that it could be both – the alternate reality, intangible by virtue of its imaginative quality, or the lived reality, made tangible by virtue of its creative prowess. It is that it is both.
Bu hikaye Arts Illustrated dergisinin April - May 2020 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Arts Illustrated dergisinin April - May 2020 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
A Sky Full Of Thoughts
Artist James Turrell’s ‘Twilight Epiphany Skyspace’ brings together the many nuances of architecture, time, space, light and music in a profound experience that blurs boundaries and lets one roam free within their own minds
We Are Looking into It
Swiss-based artists Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger talk to us about the evolving meaning and purpose of photography and the many perspectives it lends to history
Cracked Wide Open
Building one of the world’s largest domes was no mean task for anyone, let alone an amateur goldsmith, so how did Filippo Brunelleschi accomplish building not one, but two of them?
In Search of a Witness
In conversation with legendary artist Arpana Caur on all things epiphanic, on all things pandemic, and on all things artistic
Where the Shadows Speak
The founder of Sarmaya Arts Foundation takes us through the bylanes of his journey with Sindhe Chidambara Rao, the custodian of the ancient art form of shadow puppetry – Tholu Bommalata
Bodies in Motion
What happens to the memory of a revelatory experience when it is re-watched through the frames of a screen? It somehow makes the edges sharper and the focal point clearer, as we discover through Chandralekha’s iconic Sharira
Faces in the Water
As physical ‘masks’ become part of our life, we take a look at artists working with different aspects of ‘faces’ and the things that lurk beneath the surface.
A Meeting at the Threshold
The immortal actor exemplified all that is admirable about his profession, from his creative choices to his work philosophy, and his passing was a low blow. This is our tribute to the prince among stars – Irrfan
The Imperfect Layout To The Imperfect Mystery
Jane De Suza’s ‘The Spy Who Lost Her Head’ doesn’t feature a protagonist with superhuman skills of deduction, nor a plot that fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. Here, quirks and imperfections are pushed into the spotlight
Free and Flawed
Greta Gerwig revitalises the literary classic, Little Women, highlighting the literary journey of its temperamental and wonderfully flawed female protagonist, Jo March