We lead a cramped existence and jostle for space. Consider our own lives that are pigeon-holed inside claustrophobic apartment rooms, and you’ll know it for yourself. There’s absolutely no breathing space to unwind or stretch our limbs. People everywhere are crammed together under one roof like caged animals and cooped hens. Take, for instance, the mazy electric wires in a multi-storey office building. Several corporate establishments occupy every other floor with a few residential flats cut out from here and there. This makes the tenement look like a tinderbox. Daily commuters spilling out of a public conveyance appear to do a perfect balancing act like trapeze artistes at a circus. All are huddled up in a hasty rush to reach their morning destinations.
Man runs helter-skelter — chasing his dreams, aspirations and sky-rocketing ambitions scaling as high as the inflated prices of consumer commodities. Here, humans live like lonely islands, floating under the same sun and ceiling but secluded and self-absorbed in their own private space at the same time. Either they are hooked onto their cellphones, glued to their laptops and PCs or chatting and making friends on the social networking websites. Where’s the quality time to feel the cool breeze, an earthy scent or a sprinkle of soothing raindrops on their eyelashes? Is this the true reflection of a post-modern urban life? Your guess is as good as ours.
The surrounding space with electronic signals galore and less of environment-friendly green nature is starkly palpable in a jungle of concrete cement, bricks and stone-chips sans the verdant, lush flora-n-fauna. Is this the mirror image of a menagerie of today’s civilised, city-centric homo sapiens and their extant habitats? A barrage of questions may cloud up inside a connoisseur’s mind when he indulges in a dekko at Cloths and Other, an array of abstract photo-framed images by talented young lensman Dipayan Ghosh. Being showcased at Kolkata’s Chitrakoot Art Gallery, the solo exhibition will remain on till May 8.
“If clothes maketh a man, then ideas do lend him a different, real perspective,” suggests the new-age artiste. A painter, installator as well as a photographer, Ghosh is a self-taught creative artist without any formal training to boot. Elaborating on his thought-provoking theme, he further drives home his point: “A cupboard or a closet of clothes packed to its gills makes the interior of the furniture choc-a-bloc with limited space to let the air in. It’s tight and less roomy. But this is the kind of spiritless, tedious life we are living day in day out. It is dull and insipid. The present-day life witnesses a prolixity of heterogeneous items squeezed into one shelf or stacked over a rack to pick and choose from. In day-to-day pragmatic affairs, we encounter such sights and sounds, wherein our eyes and ears get jammed and jarred repeatedly. The wall graffiti, billboards, electronic ad-scrolls, audio-visuals or a cacophony of honking transport horns, a thumping rock-band orchestra, blaring trumpets, long-lasting sirens, et al are some examples.”
Originally an installation piece that got clicked on camera by the creator himself, Ghosh’s snapshots display a box stuffed with fibres, furs, shawls, utility goods, sponge, old cotton, besides a pile of wearables. The box seems to be bursting at the seams. “Apparently, it might contain a clutch of soft objects and garments but the message that it carries within is deep-seated. It has a rock-solid foundation and is profound in essence,” he enlightens. “Look, other than photography, such an array of mammoth creations would not be feasibly exhibited in an otherwise scanty gallery space, because each and every specimen was larger than a life-size installation work and would hence require a massive amount of space to display it. Whereas, on camera lens, the size and shape have been conveniently diminished. You see, this aspect is also symbolic, since our regular space gets pressed, pinned and hammered down everyday. With centralised motives to cherish and individual goals to fulfil, our movements have been confined to a specific point where we grope for our personal space to only achieve our ends,” he further avers.
Life is not just complicated for cities. Its repercussions are also felt in the suburbs, districts and villages these days. The subaltern base is making a visible shift from the simple rural to a slick urban lifestyle. “Not only the high-end MNC-employed upmarket clients from the big metros flock to malls and multiplexes instead of open-air markets, small-towners with mid-income capacities too follow suit. The concept of such one-stop destinations significantly represents the cosmopolitan times and a new-millennium look in this 21st century,” observes Ghosh.