Indrapramit Roy
Mezzaterra is an imagined territory, an idea, but a very real and pervasive one, where echoes and reflections add depth and perspective, where identities are malleable and overlapping and not clear cut and well defined, where binaries are not the only defining theme.
The rewards of inhabiting the mezzaterra are enormous because it is teeming with possibilities. It endows each thing with ‘a patina of the old and shine of the new’*.
It means you inhabit more than one language or culture at any given time. You are both inside and outside of language, of culture. Your stance cannot help but be both critical and empathetic.
This hospitable mezzaterra, where differences enrich rather than clash, is our civilizational legacy. It is under attack from all sides and needs to be defended.
* I remain indebted to Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif for the title borrowed from her eponymous book “Mezzaterra : fragments from the common ground”.
Sebastian Varghese
The geographic demarcations by water are socio-political as well as personal. Each individual interacts with a water body on a daily basis. Presence of water is a visual treat and it’s complex forms can be contemplative portals to our mind as well. When the light waves are reflected on to the ontological reality, it creates an ethereal world. But our gaze is not always on this phenomenon while we are lost in our conditionings and the emotions affect our perspective, considerably. Our fears are fluvial and passions fluid. This creates subtle agitations in the mind. But water plains can also bring tranquility at times. It’s mere presence can be the milieu of our meditations.
With these delicate watercolours, Sebastian voices his concern for our fragile ecosystem in a lyrical, poetic language.The exhibition includes a video by the artist .
