Wednesday, August 29, 2007

pans labyrinth . archana . the houses at the end of time

as a girl has to perform three difficult tasks to prove to the faun that she is the rightful heir to the kingdom of the underground, her stepfather is mounting a brutal clamp down upon the rebels hidden in the woods surrounding the army camp. its rare to see a fantasy film that is able to explore the creepy side of fairy tales without cleaning it all up with an artificial sweetness. after all there is something strange about the world that they create. pans labyrinth was able to do this- and beautifully.

archana presented her work at the encounter yesterday. her arrange your marriage web site and objects along with her recent 'relics'. in both her clever appropriation of the tacky from the kitsch of everyday life seemed to me to be a self conscious pose that is a very particular privilege. Her awareness of this pose was simultaneously keeping the work afloat while also preventing it from doing more. or perhaps the issues that they touch upon – identity and purity - were far too distant from my own experience as a half tamilian, half marathi half breed who has no relationship at all with his reportedly illustrious fathers side and is instead closer to the largely liberal mothers side of the family.

and the results of the esquisse were out today. nikhar won with a delicate and precise book about the moment before death. apurva developed a project about finding time away from everyday time while vyoma in one of the many apocalyptic scenarios but with the best representation technique looked at the reconfiguration of the old into new formations. most of the other work however was either lazily conceived or lazily executed. the most embarrassing was the work of the fourth year. so much of it seems like first year doodles.

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