Another Documentation

Another Documentation reflects the artist, Avantika Bawa’s continued interest in investigating subtle links between drawing, sculpture and architecture. Through the choice and placement of works, Bawa presents the gallery as a ‘construction-site’ where notions of the everyday that may otherwise go unnoticed are put into creative order. The resultant assemblage simultaneously address and challenge conventions of art making, display and documentation.

Components of Another Documentation include altered functional objects, photographs and drawings that extend along the wall and floor. An enormous scaffold painted a cautionary orange, occupies a central part of this assemblage. Its futile yet commanding presence mirrors the ambitions of Mumbai’s vertically growing landscape, much like a modern-day Tower of Babel. Photographs of architectural drawings, placed on modified workhorses at various construction sites are presented as a series of sequenced images. These appear to serve the function of capturing the work of a faux land surveyor.

This staged approach creates a platform where dialogue between construction and deconstruction, site and non-site, process and product are explored. Consequently, Another Documentation engages with the architecture of the gallery while also opening up conversations on the endless and often reckless construction in a heavily urbanized Mumbai.