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Artworks
Rithika Pandey's "Shrine for my oceanic mother" is an immersion into a post-human mythological world. Ancient imaginary life forms from the sea, and contemporary ecology are the source of this myth-making process. Her environment depicts a post-apocalyptic world where a deadly flood unfolds the rise of a deep sea “nuclear goddess”. Transhumance and tentacular in her aesthetic, the sculptural goddess emerges from the underworld, and carries a message of regeneration: maybe the past is lost, but certainly not the future. Feminine characters along with speculative botanical forms ejecting milky ambrosias and immortality are represented on the walls. Black bodies giving away particular gestures hint towards future events. Symbols and mysterious objects that occupy the landscape add to the mystery of Pandey’s characters. The sound in conjunction with the environment becomes a relic of the past, alluding to the Siren mythology and its ability to be simultaneously destructive and alluring. The work lays side by side the environmental crisis and the possibility of continued life on earth. It tries to capture the anxiety resulting from the unpredictable consequences of catastrophe. A sense of enigma about what happens next pervades the room, as the artist invites the viewer to confront the uncertainty of humanity’s future.
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