Bhool / Bhool (2022)

Installation, video projection on floor, two vessels with ink, water and embroidered solvy (water-soluble fabric). Duration- 5 mins.

Bhool (भलू ) is a Sanskrit word, a homonym embodying two meanings at once.

It translates to ‘forget’ and ‘mistake’.

The body and content of this piece, seeks to actualise the plurality in meaning through the atemporal medium of the stitched solvy, i.e. an embroidery backing that washes away when soaked in water. The two vessels rooting the film and language of meaning to the ground, create an activated space of erasing and melting, yet asserting and making prominent. The embroidery pieces are repeatedly dipped in water and the stitched word BHOOL remains - fragile and threadbare. Within this constructed, culturally fluid landscape, soundscape and multi- hyphenate embodiment, this piece seeks to locate and dislocate the viewer from a certain time or place.

Finding a way to locate and dislocate from time and space, the body of the Hindi word ‘bhool’ repeated multiple times hopes to embody the themes of decontextualising, as it shifts and oscillates between its two meanings of ‘forget’ and ‘mistake’. Both immediately connected to temporality and a distinct notion of time and place. Present in fabric stitches woven on water-soluble fabric, visually haunting the video via layered projections and moving bodies revolving around a milky vessel of a moon, an unfamiliar home, a midnight sun.

The soundscape of the piece – a collection of torn apart dreams recorded half-conscious, in a state of not here nor there, attempt to ground the words and visuals to a body, to a forgetfulness and the shaping of mistaken memories. Dreams being misunderstood for memories.

Watch the video here.