wait to be born
2015
performance and interactive sculpture
‘Wait to be born’, said my mother to me, as she bore in silence the war against human greed and urbanization. I waited to unite with her in her womb, protected under her flesh.
‘Wait to be born’ is an interactive sculptural performance having a form of a bowl symbolizing the womb (uterus); or two hands holding water to begin life or a bowl or flowers and water at the welcoming entrance. With the fear of getting buried under the rubble, this form acts as my shelter where I’m conversing with my mother while she asks me to wait, to be born even inside her womb.
The sculpture is made of organic matter- wheat flour. Organic matter- to represent the ability to give birth and to show the wholeness of mother’s womb. Also, that it has a life of its own and is easily degradable under earth. Wheat flour/ wheat dough is used as a critical approach to symbolize feminine/ a mother/ a woman’s responsibility in the society/ a basic human food. Questioning and doubting my safe existence, this work also politically addresses the feminist issues in terms of responsibility, shelter and motherhood in this modern world.
The sculpture is placed on the floor and under the roof of an extremely concrete and an urbanized space- raw and bare. It is left to take its own path to change its form, material and odor with time and space. Participants were asked to take parts of it and immerse it in any water body in the city, as letters to nature.
The participants were students, teachers, building construction workers, non-teaching staff, artists and the local people at Juhu beach in Mumbai, India.