“RE-ASSEMBLING THE BODY” 2015
The journey began when I have started finding the meaning in my B.F.A thesis subject i.e. “reassembling the body”. December 2015- a time when ideas of definitions, boundaries, representations and interpretations have gained an almost unparalleled fluidity and my mind was not accepting the previous modes of art production.
I was going through a complex exercise of thinking about the very essence of meaning-making or wondering what in fact “meaning” may in itself is. My mind was bombarded with-what is to begin with; what is the meaning of art? It was precisely the time when I turned towards the search for which can be deemed “meaningful”. I kept hearing that art could be immediately identified as such: that works of art had a strong identity that set them apart from the ordinary that made them qualify to be called art. Also art could be whatever it wanted, as long as it had been bestowed with an intent-giving meaning.
The will to produce art dies when you find no more logic and reason in your work. Producing art without a purpose is pretty insignificant. The purpose of making an art work eventually leads you to a sense of attachment and where if the purpose of making an art is lost, so is the will to produce art also dies. This conflict had changed the view of my own existence; my drive towards this search for that what is meaningful was in direct relation to the damage and distress that I was facing. At that time I found myself rooted in a frustration with the idea of “meaning”. To seek and find that which is meaningful to my subject was perhaps as critical as choosing life and death.
In a book named “the transfiguration of the commonplace, Arthur Danto argues towards a definition of art, where he asserts that “[….] works of art are always about something and hence have a content or meaning; and secondly that to be a work of art something had to embody its meaning. This cannot be the entire story, but if it could not get these conditions to hold, I am unclear what a work of art without them would look like”.
I kept thinking that people will only find damage, destruction and despair in my work. When we are unable to find a validation in this that for the many that will not be able to understand, there are also the many that will. After a long debate I finally had decided that it is the time to actually get your hands dirty. I began with my work and it has started communicating with me. I have started with a 4′ x 12′ sculpture which lead to 22′ x 19′ one.
I have realized that the work was loaded with the meaning of the past, the present and the future all at once. I have realized that meaning itself is not a static thing. It keeps moving and keeps taking a new direction. It changes with the circumstances that surround it can lead it to the evolution of a completely new concept, conferring new life upon the thing that embodies it, and in doing so, in itself becomes like an entirely different thing.
Ramla Fatima wrote on Sep 30:
yes you are right co-director (m) its a long debate "what is art and what is not" in a sense of finding meaning in it.
sorry for getting back to you so late. i was out of station in the country side with little or no access to the internet.i am posting the answer soon.
Ramla Fatima wrote on Sep 30:
thankyou marisa dipaola :)
marisa dipaola wrote on Sep 11:
Beautiful sculptural works... Their tied-up quality reminds me of the sacks of coal you photographed in your previous post!
Enjoy the process!
Peace and love
co-director (m) wrote on Sep 3:
Ramla, Where do you store this stuff? I look at your past work and these thoughts return that I always have when I see these sprawling material practices. Questions of logistics? How does the artist store this, or move this from place to place, what are the histories of all these elements, how did they end up in your possession and part of an artwork.
I think we can never control the meaning. I think we all bring our individual questions based on our individual realities, our past experiences, belief systems, context etc. to any work that it negates the possibility of it representing any singular monolithic truth. Lawrence Weiner once said that Art is one of those things that has no central definitions, it has a history, but it has no qualifications necessary. It has no need for a reference point to anything else, it is one of those things that appears in the world because somebody decides they are going to pose the question. And thats the thing about art, it doesn’t answer anybody’s questions but it gives them the means to answer their own particular question at that moment.
The work then, is nonsense. But there is value to nonsense. Weiner says "If we reject Hegel, and we reject Aristotle, and we understand simultaneous existences as equal possibilities, there then is no hierarchy, and if there is no hierarchy there is no way to have racism - none whatsoever - there is no logic to it.