Samira Rathod’s ‘Dismantling Building = A Kit of Parts’ is an act of excavation. Through processes of distillation that analyse buildings designed in her studio, the attempt is to discover the fundamental unit of architecture, an ’ur’ architecture- the earliest, primitive unit. This is a process to uncover the phoneme of architectural language, the first utterance we make in the world. In the process of excavation, buildings that emerged out of carefully designed affective intentions are reduced to their drawings, which in turn are further distilled into form and then
shapes. These shapes have no relationships to the platonic solids that were considered as the units of architecture by the modernists. Samira’s process of excavation dismantles these too, to reveal fragments, shards, splinters and swirls. These shapes have no scale, no dimensions, no materialities. They exist as gestures in space- figures against the ground, solids in the void, forms in space. These fragments float free of gravity in a dance that seems imminent but not yet choreographed.
The void between them is charged with erotic possibilities. Sometimes these fragments meet, touch, hold, caress, and wrestle with each other. Every such meeting is painstakingly curated, precisely detailed, and every joint articulated. New affectivities emerge, enigmatic, rich with possibilities. There is always the possibility that the fragments might fall apart again, and wait on the side poised for the next dance. This is to be expected, as Samira Rathod’s ‘Dismantling Building = A Kit of Parts’ is a process of constant discovery and re-discovery, a pursuit towards beauty, which can only have direction but no end.
Location: Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai
Typology: Exhibition
