"Over a month back, a friend and I had a discussion on memory, this elusive material that we faced problems recalling on many occasions. As a response to this discussion… or rather as footnotes to our conversation, I decided to sculpt and post a letter to this person utilizing ‘post-it’ paper and correction tape.
In the process of sculpting this letter (using a pen knife), I had made double incisions on the pad, where there had meant to be one solid cut instead. This led to an interesting mistake whose texture I instantly noted as potential to create/ manipulate a space with.
At the time, I had been frequenting Gloria Jean’s Coffees over at 100ft road, Indranagar and was made happy by the staff there who had made me feel welcome.
Unsure of a final outcome, I prepared an informal proposal that I approached GJC with.
The next couple of days were spent speaking to different managers and their superiors, till one day, I had given space to the thought that maybe this wasn’t to happen within their premise.
Just when I was about to start thinking of other places that might fancy the idea, I had received a call which caught me by surprise; Not only were they were very enthusiastic about the project but what was incredibly encouraging about this call was the amount of support the people of GJC were willing to provide.
All I could tell them for certain were the materials that I had planned on using and the space I had my eyes on. What interested me were the elements that I had chosen for my head to play with.
A medium for remembering (post-its) and one for erasing (erasers/ correction tape).
I had, at the time, also been reading ‘Food of the Gods’ by Terrence Mckenna… and this part of the text caught my attention, which I could relate to this experiment and weave into my thoughts;
“ …Tea cleared the way for the popularity of coffee. Their stimulant properties made caffeine in coffee and its close cousin theobromine in tea the ideal drugs for the Industrial Revolution: they provided an energy lift, enabling people to keep working at repetitious tasks that demanded concentration...”
One of my interests in art, lie in the use of everyday materials. That we can look at objects as myriad-purposed materials, rather than as items driven by a singular purpose. Having had the opportunities to have done something like this in Singapore, I am curious to observe public responses (in Bangalore) to projects such as this done in spaces not usually reserved for the arts.
With the visual richness that the window space of GJC provides, I’m looking forward to where the process leads… and sharing it with the people around.
Do drop on by."
This was written about 2 months back
