Work-In-Progress

I find myself strongly influenced by and reacting to urban spaces especially those spaces of transition like construction sites, industrial areas and temporary dwellings. My Work In Progress series is my homage to blue tarpaulin, which is an ubiquitous object, in the urban slums of my native India as well as in the gentrified skyscrapers of the place where I live – Singapore. Singapore and Mumbai are the two megacities that I have called home for the last twenty-five years. Both these metropolises evidence swathes of blue tarpaulin at once, seen and unseen, recalling massive construction and development but also the labour, who create the transformation but are neglected by the progress.

To my mind, this sea of blue tarpaulin connects the labourers in the two cities. In Singapore, it is used to shroud and shield new buildings and is used every day, while in Mumbai it is used by the labourers to create temporary homes for themselves. Construction workers in Singapore exist on the periphery of society and are required to go back to their home country after a prescribed period, those in Mumbai stay on, adding to the populace of slum dwellers. Blue tarpaulin is also increasingly associated with housing for refugees and displaced people across the globe. Its presence suggests temporariness, migration, concealment, transformation and lack.

Singapore, a city in flux, constantly updating itself to keep up with a growing population evidences blue tarpaulin skyline. I encounter tarpaulin everywhere in Singapore – MRT construction sites, multi-storey buildings under construction or awaiting demolition are completely covered by blue tarpaulin. It’s presence points towards thousands of migrant workers, who work relentlessly to keep this city modern, they are all but invisible in the social fabric of Singapore and who cannot even call it their home. They are akin to blue tarpaulin, such a common sight that everyone passes by without noticing.

For my series, Works-in-Progress, I created tarpaulin sheets using oil paint and fitted them with islets, so I could hang them. I layer oil paint, repetitively over a period of weeks on the surface of the tarpaulin and it is transformed into skins over time and then I actively detach the skins using fire or allow them to be cleaved by gravity. Delicate and transient skins of oil paint, created through these processes, are then assembled to create installations. The skins retain a memory of the tarpaulin they have been disconnected from and they embody a hidden presence. This memory combined with the deliberate transience of the medium recalls the transience of migrant labour and the yearning they must feel for their home and families whose memory they carry with them even as they try to eke out a better existence for them all.

Year2015