White Memories

Cast cotton rag pulp. 9”x 9”.

Etched memory

The ‘White Memory’ set of works looks at the life cycle of an object. It also invokes ways in which they become repositories of memory, nostalgia, intangible values and narratives. As time passes objects lose their relevance and become relics. But their tactile memory remains in our mind. Some objects enter our collective memory with their presence in museums. The ‘White Memory’ works convey a parallel to those experiences by evoking tactile memories. The memories of objects traced here are faint but delicate; one has to look at them closely to acknowledge their presence in a liminal space which straddles past and present.

The process of creating them is also a similar fusion of many disciplines. The initial drawing is carved on a slab of plaster of plaster (POP) like a wood-cut but the impression from the slab is extracted like an etching process. Upon the carved slab a freshly formed handmade sheet of paper made from cotton rag is laid and firmly pressed so that the pulp enters all the carved recesses. Once the sheet dries it is gently removed from the slab and burnished. Metaphorically the process also mimics the memory of the object etched in our minds.