To die is to be turned to gold
"to die is to be turned to gold" is an in-progress work that tells the story of the once-colonial city of Bombay (now Mumbai) through the eyes of a protagonist, a young sculpture of commercial statues. A city they scour for artistic inspiration - where for 300 years, hoping to make their fortune people like him have flocked. In their search for gold, many like him have died. Their bodies were laid in a place known as Sonapur, which also means 'the city of gold' since, according to an Indian saying, to die is to be turned to gold. His fellow citizens are our protagonist's primary inspiration. Their vision is set out in this series of photographs. They would sit in cafés and look at people. They would take them home with them, their image.
What they feel about them would come out in their work - they would borrow a nose from one, the ears from another. Perhaps exorcise colonial ghosts from the city. In some pictures, they would explore how architecture both formal, and vernacular is “a sculptural representation of failed futures.” In many ways a post-colonial reading, in this city scarred by absurdities, crises, and injustices, they search their surroundings for clues, to where we’ve been, to where we’re going. They come across “forsaken relics of late-fifties Nehruvian functionalism” in the old financial centre. The exploitative colonial relic has been repurposed as an equally oppressive investment bank. Like found sculptures, the ramshackle corrugated tin, plywood, plastic, pukka bricks, sheets of asbestos, piles of earth, sand, clay and other materials make the houses of millions of the urban poor. All these buildings —their designs and locations, the condition they’re in, what they replace and what they conceal—record histories and gesture toward one-time paths forward.
"to die is to be turned to gold" with a level of visual performance can be read as a building can be read: as an object that records, with its highly stylized language The sequence of images careens between street scenes, portraits, landscapes, and close-up details, recreating her fluctuating experience of the multiple faces of the city.
Reference texts & reviews:
Akshay Mahajan Searches for Mumbai’s Past Lives - Aperture Magazine