The act of balancing each other’s position is completely dependent upon the pressure one puts to one’s own side. If the pressure is maintained by keeping the strength of the other side in mind, the play will continue. The lack of understanding of the other side will make one stick in a disproportionate position forever. When the movement stops in a disproportionate position, balance becomes an unaffected truth. Where there is no equation, the vision blurs. There ‘See’ and ‘saw’ lose perspective.

Gigi Scaria
Utne/Norway
07/10/2016

‘Source of a river in descending order’, talks about the collective forces of human waste as it descends to the ground. Urban armatures are always on the lookout to drain out their over powering emotions. A price we pay for a dead river.

Polluted rivers of any geographical location are a symptom of an epidemic, which our so-called ‘civilization’ has the responsibility to deal with. Rivers are the blood vessels of a body, which we call with different names such as land, location, territory, settlement, community or nation. When we severely punish our own body not for the eternal bliss of enlightenment, but for our own idiocentric pursuit of happiness, our future becomes as dark as the colour of our river.

Gigi Scaria
September 22/2016

When a city pulsates by its clock it shuts its eyes towards the layers of parallel times, which are very much a part of our creative existence.

Gigi Scaria
September 14, Delhi

In the sense defending a territory meant metaphorically defending the possibilities of a narrative, which took place in a protected geographical territory. Invaders who barge in the territory by force or curiosity bring their own narratives to declare a war against the protected land. Through a series of photographs from three different locations in south India my attempt is to invade a territory with different time and space. Given the magnitude and the dynamism of history such attempts can become futile in its first place. But history has always been presented and preserved by the extended minds from distant times. So let me take this chance to present a set of postcards and send them to our beloved ones who live in the immediate future.

Gigi Scaria
New Delhi
January2013

These images have been shot from the various part of the city keeping in mind the stark difference in the layers of social and economic classes that exist. It also closely looks into the character of a mega polis in a much more dissected manner. When an imaginary city is made based on real facts it generates a set of meanings, which in this particular case explores the irony and sarcasm of a social framework and it’s architectural/physical spaces.

The second part of the installation is a fountain, which stands in front of the digital wall. The fountain is made out of apartment blocks and largely appears as inspired by the general architectural look of the city on the wall. This fountain apartment deals with the scarcity and the abundance of water in the city. It poses the issues of drainage water, Dead Rivers and polluted water bodies around and in a city on one hand and the ignorance about the wastage of water by the public and private sectors on the other. When we observe the drastic changes and scarcity of the natural resources in the world we realize that the role of urbanization has its major contribution to this plight.

Fountains are the urban inventions to facilitate natural sources through the technical inputs. But in the present urban context with the polluted water bodies’ fountains have become the metaphors of a glorious past and a strong reminder of the troubles ahead. By placing a city and a fountain next to it creates a dialogue between man-made disaster and a natural calamity.

I have been engaged with the city of Delhi since last 16 years. Observing and engaging with Delhi on a permanent day today basis has formed much of my perception of urban spaces in India. The layers of social structures and hierarchies’ one encounters in a single day in Delhi leaves thought for the understanding of a much larger and wider notion called ‘India’. The urban and the rural, the class and cast, religion and practice and the endless list of eccentric and idiosyncratic exchanges of different social groups somehow create its own mystery in any urban space in India. For us ‘modernity’ is a big claim, which has to be approved and contextualized at every stage of any discourse. On the other hand an economically booming India stands with millions of middle class on its side, which constantly erase and redraw the map of India with a completely different set of tools and calculations. The repercussions and resonance of these new voices has also been woven into the urban fabric with variety of architectural and cultural forms. The new construction fever and mall culture could be a result of this phenomenon.

‘City unclaimed ‘ deals with the eccentricities nurtured and watered in a typical urban setting of India largely created and running through the migrant population and its constant ‘pilgrimage’. In its nature each part of the city claims its immediate vicinity but overall lies unattended and unclaimed by any system or logic. It grows and decays by its own logic, assigned by the mood of time and its everlasting nature of permanency if allowed to understand ‘time’ as the only phenomenon un- flickered and static.

Gigi Scaria
New Delhi 2012

This installation has two sections combined together to make one elaborate sculptural and digital intervention. The digital part of the work is made out of photographic images of the city Delhi and manipulated in order to create an imaginary city scape which has it’s own complex cultural logic. These images have been shot from the various part of the city keeping in mind the stark difference in the layers of social and economic classes that exist. It also closely looks into the character of a mega polis in a much more dissected manner. When an imaginary city is made based on real facts it generates a set of meanings, which in this particular case explores the irony and sarcasm of a social framework and it’s architectural/physical spaces.

The second part of the installation is a fountain, which stands in front of the digital wall. The fountain is made out of apartment blocks and largely appears as inspired by the general architectural look of the city on the wall. This fountain apartment deals with the scarcity and the abundance of water in the city. It poses the issues of drainage water, Dead Rivers and polluted water bodies around and in a city on one hand and the ignorance about the wastage of water by the public and private sectors on the other. When we observe the drastic changes and scarcity of the natural resources in the world we realize that the role of urbanization has its major contribution to this plight.

Fountains are the urban inventions to facilitate natural sources through the technical inputs. But in the present urban context with the polluted water bodies’ fountains have become the metaphors of a glorious past and a strong reminder of the troubles ahead. By placing a city and a fountain next to it creates a dialogue between man-made disaster and a natural calamity.

I have been engaged with the city of Delhi since last 16 years. Observing and engaging with Delhi on a permanent day today basis has formed much of my perception of urban spaces in India. The layers of social structures and hierarchies’ one encounters in a single day in Delhi leaves thought for the understanding of a much larger and wider notion called ‘India’. The urban and the rural, the class and cast, religion and practice and the endless list of eccentric and idiosyncratic exchanges of different social groups somehow create its own mystery in any urban space in India. For us ‘modernity’ is a big claim, which has to be approved and contextualized at every stage of any discourse. On the other hand an economically booming India stands with millions of middle class on its side, which constantly erase and redraw the map of India with a completely different set of tools and calculations. The repercussions and resonance of these new voices has also been woven into the urban fabric with variety of architectural and cultural forms. The new construction fever and mall culture could be a result of this phenomenon.

‘City unclaimed ‘ deals with the eccentricities nurtured and watered in a typical urban setting of India largely created and running through the migrant population and its constant ‘pilgrimage’. In its nature each part of the city claims its immediate vicinity but overall lies unattended and unclaimed by any system or logic. It grows and decays by its own logic, assigned by the mood of time and its everlasting nature of permanency if allowed to understand ‘time’ as the only phenomenon un- flickered and static.

Gigi Scaria
New Delhi 2012

The layers of social structures and hierarchies one encounters in a single day in Delhi leaves thought for the understanding of a much larger and wider notion called ‘India’. The urban and the rural, the class and cast, religion and practice and the endless list of eccentric and idiosyncratic exchanges of different social groups somehow create its own mystery in any urban space in India. For us ‘modernity’ is a big claim, which has to be approved and contextualized at every stage of any discourse. On the other hand an economically booming India stands with millions of middle class on its side, which constantly erase and redraw the map of India with a completely different set of tools and calculations. The repercussions and resonance of these new voices has also been woven into the urban fabric with variety of architectural and cultural forms. Many of these observations have been a catalyst for the making of the Elevator from the subcontinent. It is a bit larger than a normal size elevator cabin with an automatic door system. When you press the button, the door opens, inside the elevator you witness three backlit projections. Then the door closes behind you and images on all the three projections around you create a car parking basement. Slowly the parking space moves down giving you an illusion of going upward in the elevator. Then it reaches the next floor, which is the interior of a middle class household. Thus the elevator travels through different levels, each one displaying different living space. These living spaces can be identified as different social stratas and hierarchies. The ride is of about ten minutes and finally one comes back to the car parking space and the elevator door opens.

The elevator has a symbolic significance when we think about the logic in which it makes up and down movements. Elevator is a sculptural version of a progressive logic imposed by the state on its citizens. According to its structure, progress comes with linearity and its vertical façade. In this work an attempt is made to break the structural logic of the space by viewing the living spaces in horizontal layers thereby creating vast spaces of parallel existence. In another sense the layers of vision blocked by the walls get illuminated by each spectator while experiencing the elevator.

Gigi Scaria

When we observe a fountain in the middle of a public square, the sheer beauty of it along with the way the water falls is arranged attract us first. The cool surroundings of the fountain make us stay longer in front of it. If we stay longer slowly we think of the resources of the flowing water in the system and wonder do we still have the luxury to afford a fountain which is run by the most precious and limited element of natural resources of all time.

The more time we spent in front of the fountain the better we understand the politics of water. The Politics of water not only pin point the power play of different geographical entities but it also indicate the lack of waste water management as well as the presence of polluted water bodies which are dying their natural death as a result of the lapse of management.

As a visual artist I have been a constant observer of the urban planning and the different social spaces in the metropolis of India since last ten years. The scope and the magnitude of major cities of India increased over a period of time at the same time the distribution of the natural resources are increasingly caught up with the huge manage mental crisis. As a result, a mega city like Delhi which has a river flowing across 25 kilometer stretch carries polluted water.

Understanding the plight of the water bodies in a developing world I would propose a fountain on public site which will be using contaminated water from the natural source like polluted river or industrial waste water which flows through many canals in most of the cities. The fountain will have three to four floors in its architectural structure. The water which pumps up from the lower structure of the fountain will go through a cleansing process before it reaches to the next level of the structure. The architectural model of the fountain will incorporate a mechanic devise which will clean the water during its journey up word. When the water goes up from the second level to the third another cleaning devise will be activated to purify the water further. Finally when it reaches to the fourth or fifth level the water will be as pure as drinking water. The overflowing purified water appears at the top of the fountain will be channelized to the ground and made available for the public use.

Fountain of purification could be considered as one of the pragmatic ways for people to get interested in the recycling waste water management. The fountain will also function as an interesting public sculpture with astonishing architectural possibilities. The water used in the fountain body will make its major transcendence while ascending towards the top of the structure at the same time comes back to the ground level after purification in order to serve the people. Understanding science in a utilitarian sense is one aspect of the project. At the same time contaminated water ascending towards the purification process evokes many metaphors of contemporary psyche within the context of ‘nature ‘in urbanism.