Goa: A Time That Was, an exhibition currently on at the Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts in Panaji, features work by photographer and writer Waswo X Waswo, photographer and filmmaker Ipshita Maitra, and architect and historian Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar. Take a tour.
Goa-based architect and historian Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar’s site-specific installation. This is not the Basilica! It is a large print of the the Basilica of Bom Jesus hidden behind a protective covering of palm fronds, to indicate the fragile nature of the structure and the weak efforts made to protect the 16th-century monument. (Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar)
2/7
A second installation, (T)here is the Basilica, a mixed-media work shows how the building has been part of popular culture for decades, featuring in photographs, advertisements, local art. It is the basilica that saves the state from being represented entirely in clichéd images of sun, sand and sea. But the beloved monument remains at risk itself. (Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar)
3/7
The dilemma of the Bom Jesus church is the kind of dilemma typical of living in and loving Goa. The church had external plaster that eroded over time, and it has now been immortalised in this form: its underlying laterite stone exposed to damage from the elements. Re-plastering it would mean changing how it has looked for decades, changing things for tourists and pilgrims. And yet, this is not how it was meant to stand. (Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar)
Goa-based photographer and filmmaker Ipshita Maitra’s project represents the changed ethnographic, ancestral and geographic landscapes of the state through photographic collages. Images of six old Goan homes and their interiors are layered and distorted, reproduced as handmade emulsions or prints, to represent a sense of loss. (Ipshita Maitra)
5/7
“Using the rather intimate space of home, and extending it to the larger concept of a neighbourhood and community, the collections draw attention to a systemic erosion of cultural and ethnic identity and a gradual gentrification that is taking place in Goa,” says Leandré D’Souza, curator and programme director at Sunaparanta. (Ipshita Maitra)
10
Modus Vivendi (1000 people – 1000 Homes), 2000: In this self-portrait, a work of mixed media on canvas, Kallat appears as a swaggering, bespectacled juggler of heart and brain. The painting is an exploration of selfhood in the city of Mumbai, where he grew up and lives. The individual, lost in the multitudes, wanders in a state of perpetual disorientation, as reflected in the work. The radiating streaks of red, orange and green, reminiscent of thermal imagery, were achieved by texturing the canvas with layers of paint or canvas and then peeling off some parts to attain the desired visual effect.
5
Sheer delight: While out surveying the remote Phoenix Islands Archipelago, Schmidt Ocean Institute scientists captured rare footage of a “glass octopus”, named so because it is completely see-through. What one does see when one shines a light on it is its optic nerve, eyeballs, and digestive tract. Even though this species has been known to science since 1918, scientists were forced to study about this animal through specimens found in the guts of predators, before this sighting.
7
Herald / Harbinger is a permanent public art installation by Ben Rubin and Jer Thorp. It broadcasts the sounds of the Bow Glacier cracking and breaking 200 km away, to the centre of Calgary, one of Canada’s largest cities, almost in real time. The sounds and imagery shaped by data from a glacial observatory are broadcast through 16 speakers and seven LED arrays.
10
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022): The movie explores the many dimensions of parenthood and love through the story of a Chinese-American immigrant named Evelyn Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh) who, while struggling to run a failing laundromat business, uses her newfound powers to travel across multiple realities to save the world and work on her strained relationships with her loved ones. It’s a family drama that’s fast-paced, funny and, above all, tackles earnestly the idea of healing from intergenerational trauma.
6
At first sight: For centuries, sunspots were thought to be Mercury passing across the Sun. By the early 17th century, with the invention of the telescope, astronomers could get a clearer look. In 1610, Galileo Galilei (who first used the telescope to observe space) in Italy and his British contemporary Thomas Harriot identified these as spots on the Sun. Seen here are 35 drawings of sunspots created by Galileo between June 2 and July 8, 1612.
