Melting Dreams 2014

 

My art practice is a combination of photography, writing and installation and revolves around the concept of "Time". A "Time" whose different planes - past, present and future - exist in tandem and a "Time" that runs like a static river. This belief is deeply rooted in the Indian Philosophy of Time.

 

“…the apparent passage of time is an illusion. If we could stand outside the universe and see it 'as it is’, it would appear to be static.”[1]

 

The above excerpt from English Physicist Julian Barbour’s book, The End of Time, appears to state in the realm of Modern Physics some of the concepts of this philosophy that I grew up with and was a very exciting find...

 

In August 2014, I participated in an artist-in-residence project called Projectspace Gorman House in Canberra. This is where my art project, Melting Dreams, first took shape. www.4romjane2me.blogspot.com.au 

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For this work, I folded sheets of vintage newspapers into abstract shapes. I used sheets from the Australian Women’s Weekly and other magazines (1945-59) as well as found newspapers from the year 2014 like The Chronicle, La Fiamma, Greek and Panjabi newspapers. These shapes were, in a way, like my thoughts, some spiky and hurtful, some plain and simple and some serene. The flattening of the newspaper sheets for the project equated to the literal and conceptual flattening of time that provided the space wherein I wove my thoughts into organic sculptural shapes - shapes that trapped Time itself within their form.

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The works were shown in an installation at POD, Lonsdale St in Canberra in December 2014. Nine works were suspended in the space with fishing line. The idea behind the installation was that it could change shape and take on different forms according to the thought that in life there are different paths and formations that are available to us. But, which is the one that we will choose finally...maybe the one that brings us peace, the one that connects us all in this vast continuum that is called life.

 

Visitors were invited to walk through the installation as if treading time itself. It was a fascinating experience to watch them interact with the works and imagine them being encapsulated in a space where time stood still...suspended.

 

 

[1] Julian B. Barbour, The End of Time, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) http://www.platonia.com/books.html