Aashna Pujara

Making / Unmaking Of

Intaglio; soft ground, soap ground, drypoint, chine-colleWeaving, monofilament, cotton, copper

“The rain falls hard, through the roof it seeps into the foundation. Drop by drop, causing the structure weakness. The paint chips and it falls, then the plaster, the body of the house now visible. Grid like patterns reveal themselves in the walls and the ceiling. The plants are green, frogs jumping, and flowers in full bloom. Water pools in the veranda, overflowing and uninvited on the marble step. The air is humid, sticky, and uncomfortable. An ick in the brain, body, and on the skin as the control slips away.Everything is connected and everything is intertwined. A place, an individual, relationships. They all intersect in a tangle difficult to undo. Scaffolding - the support and the beginning of a place. Ceiling - a roof and the completion of a shelter, compulsory for a habitat. Paint - warm or cool, setting the ambience and providing protection from the raw and sharp materials. Wood - the blueprint and tangible outline of the structure. Capturing the impression of these four elements on copper, I process and attach metaphors to make sense of the uneasy, and foreign feeling I’ve found in all the places I’ve lived in since departing my childhood home. The materials and the labour that go into making a home are for the purpose of reliability, protection, and even permanence. It represents security and settlement in a place, finding your ground, comfort, and a safe space. But an attachment once formed to another land and a home during the formative years, has been impossible to separate from or forget. The homes later lived in, the individual, and the relationships have been scattered, and seemed lost in a lull since. The woven fabric is the mind or the substrate, where all of these places, histories, thoughts, memories, and relationships represented through printed layering meet to form the movement of my life and how I experience home in the present. A home can be many things, but not all structures can make a home for every person. The walls can feel too white, the ground shifts, the silence uncomfortable, and an anxious mindset that never lets the surroundings feel appropriate. ”