Interrogating the idea of 'home'

India International Centre (IIC) will inaugurate an exclusive exhibition 'The Homeland' curated by Moutushi Chakraborty on December 23, in New Delhi.

The exhibition interrogates the idea of home; What is a 'Home'? A three-dimensional space to seek physical respite and emotional solace perhaps or maybe an architectural splendor to boast of, a tattered bunker to hide from bullets or a magical cocoon to build dreams on.

Explaining the artworks, Moutushi said that the womb is our first home – the warm throbbing sac that gives us life and nourishment, calms us with consistent heart-beat and the first music to a human ear. Yet, a time comes for this home to be dismantled and purge out into the outside world with a shriek, a world less cocooned.

"All our lives we shift through multiple homes, sometimes forcibly and sometimes by choice. Redefining our identities with every shift, as we adapt to the unknown. Assembling and dismantling of homes have become a constant reality in the burgeoning city-lives. Older cities make way for new modernity, as we move out to weave new stories," she added.

Her sketches and paintings raise questions about those stories woven by the lives of our ancestors and where do they fit inside our plush multiplexes. The artworks seek answers that perhaps the stained old photograph becomes the only remnant of a once large household. Yet it lives on as the memory of that sacred space, as warm and comforting truth like the womb we once inhabited and left to claim a new identity beyond.

The exhibition will be open for visitors from December 24-January 3, 2020 at the Art Gallary, IIC from 11:00 am – 6:30 pm.