Edges Of An Urbanised River
Audio-Visual Installation, 1 x video projection / Stereo Sound, 13 min, 2018
Exhibited at TransArt Festival, Kolkata, 2018
During a residency in Kolkata, I co-created a site-specific audio/visual installation with local video artist Baishampayan Saha. Through deconstruction and abstraction of field recordings made on walks around the city,I aimed to convey the impacts of globalisation on the rapidly developing region.
The composition transitions from the imagined journey of plastic waste flowing through the sewers of the city, to an abandoned litter of puppies whose cries are drowned out by a tsunami of car engines and train horns. And ends with recordings made at the cities industrial burning ghats, where the bodies of the dead are incinerated on pyres under a vast web of twisting pipes and humming extractor fans.
'Edges Of An Urbanised River' was exhibited in Kolkata in January 2018, on a boat that carried audiences along the Hooghly River from Babughat up to the Burning ghats.
Special thanks to the good people at Littlei & Culture Monks for providing me with their local knowledge, facilities, support and friendship.