A.M.M.A.A Virtual Artist Residency 2022
‘MAPPING INTERRUPTIONS : Unfolding Portals of the Everyday’
I was invited to participate in a two week virtual residency with artist Alka Mathur in November 2022. The residency is organized by A.M.M.A.A. : The Archive for Mother Artists in Asia, founded by Ruchika Wason Singh.
As we started to unravel our stories, life journeys and experiences with each other, we found connections and intersections on multiple levels. At the same time, it was a discovery of another’s world through video calls, zoom and what’s-app messages.
One of us has already built a lifetime of memories as a mother while the other is navigating motherhood through new experiences and understanding the world through her child’s eye.
“For me, Aparajita, looking out of the window, looking into the TV screen, my thoughts wander back to the rhythms, sounds and smells, that are folded into my memories, reflecting a life path I walked on. Now, in the interrupted flow of today, the mundane is precious to me. I am saving pieces of paper that were once lists, my child’s doodles, daily notes and a variety of wastepaper from our home. Using these discarded moments, I will create paper pulp. Inherited textile fragments and threads from my late mother’s textile apparel practice overlapping with the remnants of my now, I intend to develop topographies charting my ordinary.”
“Capturing and archiving moments is crucial to my art practice. I, Alka, have been obsessively collecting objects, and memories since childhood. Stored in boxes, shells, seeds, dried flowers, wires, nuts, bolts, washers, scraps of paper, cloth and threads fill up my studio. Constantly clicking pictures, and videos on my phone camera, I keep storing and archiving these into folders on my computer and hard drive; I write or scribble the daily happenings or a shared moment over a cup of tea onto used tea bags and tea-stained paper and create journals with handmade paper.”
