‘Visual Dialogues on the Current Pandemic’

Conceived and Curated by Ayan Mukherjee.

These are bewildering times that our civilization is attending to and undergoing. We, the people, have a job in hand in adapting ourselves to this grave pandemic, shielding one another, thus trying to protect society from this deadly virus and ensuring the durability of our existence. In order to defend ourselves, we have been introduced to various ‘protective gears’ that are steadily becoming a part of our journey through life. These elements, speculatively, are helping us to stay alive and breathe, giving us prospects of being safe and secured from the paradox we call COVID-19.

The face mask is one such piece of gear that has become a constant companion in a human being’s struggle for existence, a part of our daily routine, and soon enough, it may also find a place in our fashion books. It’s not an option to accept this entity as our friend for life but an obvious prerequisite for the well-being of our existence, which cannot be ignored, I suppose.

On a different doctrine and dogma, this entire occurrence of the sudden intruding of COVID-19 in our lives and settling down with ease and comfort may have been a bone, a blessing in disguise for human beings and society as it undoubtedly has compelled us to evaluate, introspect, and realise our ways of seeing and defining life along with our philosophical search and outlook towards life, appraising the discrete threads of inequalities that intensely exist in our society. It has given us a scope to reignite and reassess our various senses, gifting us with that window of opportunity to re-construct the demeanour and characters of our practical, social, political, and intellectual thought spaces.

The reasoning behind the usage of the protective gear in this case, the face mask, may turn out to be subjective. The perspective may vary from person to person.

These understandings have markedly infiltrated me, both on a psychological and practical level. My ways and processes of conceptualising and conceiving a visual arts exhibition and constructing the same have coincided well and encouraged me to take this up as a fitting affair for creating dialogue and discourse in the visual language with the help of the various dialects and practices of different visual artists. It may turn out to be an exotic experience for us to identify how the concerned art practitioners employ the face mask as a physical object in their works, narrating in their preferred mediums of practice. To unearth how the Face Mask transforms itself from popular imagery into a metaphorical symbol of the current times when it gets nurtured in their metaphysical practice and associates itself with their works should really be captivating, I believe.

Going by the subject of the show, which I believe is popular in a way as it extensively talks about a social crisis and its possible effects on the present pandemic and future perspectives of our lives—our habits and patterns of social behaviour—it was essential to mount and manifest this exhibition on a platform and territory that is much larger than the conventional gallery space, which does have certain limitations. It was precise and definite, and I realised that the intention and relevancy of this exhibition will only be ascertained and intensified when it gets cultivated and negotiated by an undefined and unbiased audience, and the Internet with its virtual platforms turned out to be the best option to opt for. I believe it would be a nice induction to share and showcase art in social media and public domains, developing a much more diverse landscape of viewers and building a community of audiences around the globe who may not have previously been exposed to art exhibitions or who haven’t yet comprehended art as an independent language of communication. To open up spaces for this considerable population by opting for methods of insisting on them being a part of the visual arts scenario, provoking their cultural psyche, is necessary, and the call of the hour is emphasized.

This exhibition thus does not intend only to address the so-called ‘art audience’ with intellectual thoughts and ideas that may be delusional; metamorphose into a visual spectacle that would woo us with its omnipresence; rather, it endeavors to create sustainable dialogues regarding our existential reality and initiates to be that similitude image of the current times and practical state that we are endorsing and living in, along with hallucinating of a new normal that the current trend suggests.

Ayan Mukherjee
Curator.