An artwork by Gayathri Santhosh
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Protocols of Living, the ongoing exhibition at Dhi Contemporary gallery in Madhapur, Hyderabad, showcases artworks of some of India’s emerging contemporary creative voices. On view till August 3, the show highlights the visions of four artists working across diverse mediums. The works explore themes of history, collective memory shaped by crises and personal experiences, identity, infrastructure, social behaviour, institutions and governance.The artworks reflect the systems, structures and habits that influence contemporary existence. Rather than directly depicting these systems, they focus on the visible and invisible frameworks such as spaces marked by absence, fragmented forms of communication, traces of displacement and landscapes transformed by human intervention.Art docent Shreya Subrahmanyamsays the exhibition seeks to draw attention to structures that often go unnoticed and yet govern daily life.Here are a few exhibits that stand out:Against the InvisibleGayathri T Santhosh’s Against the Invisible is an immersive mixed-media installation created with watercolour and hand stitching on paper and archival materials such as maps and photographs. Her artwork explores how collective memory is shaped by global catastrophe and uncertainty as well as the recurring structures through which societies respond to moments of upheaval, thereby examining the histories of diseases, their carriers, displacement and mortality.Drawing inspiration from her research of the Bombay Plague of 1896, the Calcutta Plague of 1898 and the COVID-19 pandemic, the artist reflects on collective trauma and how societies understand loss, resilience and continuity across time. The artist uses cross-embroidery to represent lives lost and the grief that follows.Another artwork by Gayathri, titled Route Map of an Invisible Enemy, uses the azo-dye technique and stitching as metaphorical acts of marking, mending and remembrance. The cyclical act of stitching reflects the trial-and-error pursuit of survival in times of crises. Her artwork also symbolises flies as bearers of collective tragedy.Ritual by Prajwal Naitam
