Sohil Bhatia Shares His Experiences at HH Art Spaces, Goa

Sohil Bhatia is the Foundation's first resident at HH Art Spaces, Goa. As his time in Goa came to an end we requested Sohil to share some of his works and experiences with us.

Sohil Bhatia

A painful restlessness often takes over a little above my gut, just where the ribcage splits. A knot, a clenched lump. The center of the lump folds the body inwards, it curls it up like gnocchi. The shoulders bend, the neck still looks out but the back is hunched and that’s the only posture to contain this center from spreading. It’s like the body in an extremely animated way, sucks itself inwards. In resistance to it’s suck-tional nature, I found myself lying flat on the ground, baring my chest to the ceiling. I stared at the skylight until I found the sun piercing right through the glass into my eyes. And I saw my own sunrise and sunset in a quick time frame of 4-6 minutes.

A city that lovingly contains the sky, the water and the sun nurtured me, made me visible and made me see.

I watched keenly, the sky, the sun and the sea. I watched keenly, time in a large empty room where I was small,

so small, small.

In a large empty room, a large white empty room.

In a large empty room, I watched.

Light Performance

The light performance is a documentation of timely mapping of the light of the Sun as it comes through the skylight frame. The mapping was completed over two drawing performances that document light every four minutes.

24th January 2017 – 1409hrs - 1641hrs 25th January 2017 – 1053hrs - 1405hrs

The light performance that began as an experiment, became a sketch towards the rest of the installation. My interest saw a shift from live performance to performance documents.

I-II-III-IV installation with video, recorded sound and drawings performance document 9 hours

I-II-III-IV is an observation of natural and artificial mechanisms that unfold over an un-anticipated duration through a series of performance experiments. In the absence of a performer, the installation invites the audience to diligently watch a site of constant flux. I-II-III-IV was shown at the open studio hosted at HH Art Spaces.

The installation comprises of independent exhibits bringing together a study of duration. The exhibits are placed in a white cube to enhance the viewer’s conscious visibility in the site.

A handkerchief with curd is hung over a weighing scale. The scale documents the change as the water in the measuring bowl rises through the duration of the installation.

The mosquito coil is one of the visibly exhaustive elements in the installation. As it burns, it leaves a constant trace of it’s existence. An object with a shadow, on combustion, disappears and on complete reduction leaves a construction on the pedestal, similar to it’s shadow.

The fountain is a representation of a cycle. It is an infinite act that runs independently, on loop in a site that contains objects and mechanisms marking and measuring time. The fountain remains isolated of the other mechanisms and runs in mindless continuity. It’s construction is of domestic material and the spectacle is a running faucet and a leaking sink. The fountain also tries to encompass a universe in itself with one aquarium supporting snails and the other aquarium hosting goldfish. It mostly shows such precise repetition that when photographed, it could be a static sculpture that shows minimal visible change.

The oscillating fan, another representation of a cycle runs with a pre-recorded and synchronised soundtrack i.e. a count from one to eight, similar to that of a count in choreographic practice.

The fan is the time keeper, the obedient performer, maintaining it’s motion with the count.

The video documents the sunlight as it falls on the wall, coming in through the window. The video is projected and played in the accurate location of the sunlight at an inaccurate time and runs on loop creating the illusion of the sun.

The video is a walk towards the sun, a walk of an infinite objective that starts off land and continues in the water.