traces trash

in an idyllic day at the beach the loving threesome in ‘jules et jim’ look for traces of civilization in the forest. these are fragments from similar journeys made by forest explorers before them leaving clues of their trail; a matchbox, a bag lying buried in the grass or entangled in the branches. they collect them as they walk hand in hand through the brush in the bright afternoon. this is a path, it seems, that many have traveled before. what do they do with them when they reach the beach? towards the end when tragedy strikes, merely because it has to, it seems like the only way such a story could end is in an urn of ashes buried or as dust scattered over the hillside. all fragments as dust- once scattered- uncollectible.

in vivan sundaram’s ‘trash’ these fragments are collected like the residue of a civilization and are reorganized to make a new city. a city of junk, neatly sorted and organized sliced by roads made of mud, flyovers of plastic toys, and towers of cans, slippers, tires.

this is a city as bricolage or colin rowe’s collage. the city as an apparatus for everyday life made up of things that have been discarded. each of these fragments recalls its earlier role as a ghost. the assemblage is also an assemblage of these memories- the feet that wore the slippers, the company that makes the cans, the sofas that were filled with the foam. high definition digital photographs record this city in enormous blow ups while in the videos the city is burnt by rioters and blown away by a hurricane.

dharavi is a makeshift city like the one in ‘trash’ involved in recycling itself perpetually and made up of what is refused. its like a city inside the other city that mimics it. wasn’t it a borges story where a map is made to be so precise that they difference between the two collapses?

in the boxes by joseph cornell these fragments become signifiers for memories of travel. collected objects whose value lies in what they evoke. when collected together they whole represents a life lived- a lifetime evoked. i had spoken about showcases in the living rooms of migrants as these- shrines to the history of family and tribe. in a showcase these fragments seem to ring with melancholia.But these fragments were decidedly not trash. they were carefully chosen bits from various shops and stores.

still, a similar sense of nostalgia does tinge ‘trash’- especially the hospital ward with the beds made of slippers and the lone naked bulbs that hang over them. what do the fragments in ‘trash’ evoke?

the city of ‘trash’ is in a sense utopian. perpetually sustainable and precisely bounded in spite of being constantly self generating. when this city is burnt or blown away the rush to parallel these acts of destruction to the forces of global capital is too trite- but revealing. after all we do live in times where complex questions are being wiped out by simplistic solutions.

in kausiks work these fragments find new life. it seems like there is a parallel universe running close to our lives where what we discard find their place. here these mechanical creatures mutate into new forms of life breathing, moving about, playing and even, i believe, mating and reproducing. in this ecosystem the meanings generated and the questions raised are as cryptic are those of life itself.

its like that menagerie of miniature mutant creatures on the 'island of lost dreams' in spy kids 2. fegan floop watches over a model of the island in his laboratory that is also the island itself. things can change in reality by moving things around on it. another reference to the borges map.

as a quick aside, and as an end to this ramble, here is an image of a building made by a teacher of mine in dharavi. one of the earlier mhada rehabilitation schemes. gloomy cookie-cutter architecture enlivened, as it were, by this symbolism on the water tank. he told me that they represented boats that will take the slum dwellers away from their dreary lives to a better future.

where are the rioters and the hurricanes when you need them?