After converting Khoj Studios into a spaceship in the first art-meets-science show, the second set of artists participating in the residency project at the venue have converted the space into a science laboratory.
The exhibition, titled “The Undivided Mind-II”, has five participating artists. Jaden Hastings (U.S.), Lalinthorn Phencharoen (Thailand), Paribartana Mohanty (Delhi), and Shreyasi Kar and Bidisha Das (Bangalore), have explored the crossover between art and science in the laboratory, where sound, video, text, drawing, biology, physics and chemistry co-exist.
Jaden, who is a bio-medical researcher with a fine arts degree, has created works that look like fine art imagery. It is only when she explains the process of how she created the work that one realises how she involved science in doing so.
Jaden explains that she used her blood to create stains on glass slides, which she has mixed with pigments and metallic oxides. When these slides are projected on Giclee prints, the end result looks like something that belongs in an art studio and not in a laboratory.
She calls herself a “bio-hacker”, which is part of a movement that aims at demystifying biotechnology, increasing awareness and contextualising its potential in such a way that the common citizen can understand it. Her fascination with blood continues in her other works as well, as she has created a video showing the movement of blood cells, played to self-composed music. She explains that this is to interpret how protein cells are unique to each one of us, almost like a metaphor of our life cycle.
Lalinthorn has created artworks based on conceptual drawings and reflecting negative human behaviour in society. The drawings have been done in ink, silverpoint and graphite on paper, trying to imitate medical illustrations.
Paribartana has made a video titled “The Miniaturist”, which takes its reference from physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer reciting shlokas from the Bhagavad Gita in the aftermath of the nuclear holocaust.
“In the film, Oppenheimer is searching a way out from his trauma by reciting the spiritual text, but simultaneously defending or justifying the evil atomic experiment and violence on the basis of dharma and karma, alluding with what Krishna suggested to Arjuna,” Paribartana says.
Shreyasi and Bidisha have created a laboratory that has several mini-labs inside it. They use plants as the basis of experimentation to explore the relationship between man and nature, and reflect on how plants react to human environment.
The exhibition is on till April 14 at Khoj Studios in Khirkee Extension.
