Description

Single Channel video. 6 minute loop with sound. Free standing sculpture, 244 x 122 x 122 cm, (96 x 48 x 48 inches), high kiosk-like wood/board construction on wheels, collapsible to facilitate transportation. Video projected on the ‘kiosk’ creating a 6 minute puppet-theatre/Punch & Judy, comic strip, kind of cinema-show: an enactment seen through and outside two windows. The installation requires total darkness: ideally a tent, (size variable), in the open with black or dark blue interior and a colourful design on the outside.

The video attempts to conjure a narrative radiating in various directions... but can be simply read as a blossoming romance between a working class man and a slightly older woman (there is a hint of them belonging to different communities) which is disrupted by unapproving family members aided by a riotous crowd. There is an affirmative image of the woman in the end.

In windows I deploy the narrative techniques of silent cinema, the dynamics of Rajasthani puppets and Punch and Judy, popular Bollywood cinema, early expressionist cinema, animation and a sound track which attempts to seamlessly string romantic songs from Hindi, Belgium folk singing, North Indian Folk instrumental, Japanese Gagaku, Persian classical instrumental fused with Indian bazaar-sounds and British football chanting.