Site-specific at NCBS archives, nine documents piles, inkjet print and pencil on mitsumata paper, 20cm x 30cm
Installation view, 2022
The exhibition is a two-part ‘circumstance’ that takes on the form of a constantly changing reading room.The making-of and the access to a document in the archive is codified and performed in certain standardised ways specific to the archive. My work intervenes into this structure at an institution, and brings the intimacy of reading that occurs in a domestic space, making different kinds of reading possible. I annotate and write on the field notes of Ravi Sankaran that take on the form of intimate diaries and lose their identity as an archival object that inherently asks for distance. The work was part of a residency at the archives at National Center for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India.
The original text used in the documents comes from the research material from Ravi Sankaran Papers in the archives at NCBS. Sankaran was an ornithologist who worked with the conservation of several endangered species of birds in India. At the archives, I was especially interested in his field notes about floricans, where he studied their habitat, threats, behavior and eating patterns on and off for a period of thirty years. Floricans are incredibly private and territorial; during the time Sankaran was alive, they were difficult to observe and could only be seen during the mating period of six months. The rest of the six months was their migratory period, no one knew what they did or how long they stayed in one place for. I am interested in those missing six months, the sort of life that was lived in that time.
Installation view, 2022
The exhibition is a two-part ‘circumstance’ that takes on the form of a constantly changing reading room.The making-of and the access to a document in the archive is codified and performed in certain standardised ways specific to the archive. My work intervenes into this structure at an institution, and brings the intimacy of reading that occurs in a domestic space, making different kinds of reading possible. I annotate and write on the field notes of Ravi Sankaran that take on the form of intimate diaries and lose their identity as an archival object that inherently asks for distance. The work was part of a residency at the archives at National Center for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India.
The original text used in the documents comes from the research material from Ravi Sankaran Papers in the archives at NCBS. Sankaran was an ornithologist who worked with the conservation of several endangered species of birds in India. At the archives, I was especially interested in his field notes about floricans, where he studied their habitat, threats, behavior and eating patterns on and off for a period of thirty years. Floricans are incredibly private and territorial; during the time Sankaran was alive, they were difficult to observe and could only be seen during the mating period of six months. The rest of the six months was their migratory period, no one knew what they did or how long they stayed in one place for. I am interested in those missing six months, the sort of life that was lived in that time.
(Photo credit: Ravi K.B.)
The first image shows one of the annotations left by someone in audience. I invited people to co-read with me in an asynchronous manner, and leave re-annotations upon my annotations on Sankaran’s field notes. The work is made on mitsumata paper, to emulate the original notes, that made the visitors believe they were writing on Sankaran’s original notes, shifting the perception of how one engages with an archival object is meant to not be touched, and going back in time to Sankaran. The reading room was open for ten days, where I was adding new pages to the document piles everyday, and the room would shift its meaning, with a three-note conversation that was happening between Sankaran, me and the audience. The room could accommodate only two people at a time, which made for a close experience.