Ashwini Bhat’s work What Will It Take / For Us To Awake? is in the collection of Asian Art Museum (San Francisco) as a permanent sculptural installation, commissioned by the Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India (SACHI) to commemorate their 25th anniversary and their ongoing collaborative partnership with the museum. This is currently on view at the entrance of the South Asian Galleries at the Asian Art Museum, whereas the second edition is part of Frieze Sculpture Park curated by Fatos Ustek at the English Gardens, Regent’s Park, London.
What Will It Take / For Us To Awake? is a bronze bell modelled on the calla lily, a symbol of regeneration, the (female) body and nature. The piece holds literal and symbolic meanings: it marks the moment and calls for a spiritual reawakening. This sculpture reflects upon the complexity - both beautiful and sobering - of humanity’s ongoing encounter with the world around us.
With a background in literature and classical Indian dance, Ashwini Bhat works in sculpture, ceramics, installation and video, and has developed a unique visual language to explore the intersections between body and nature, the self and other. Her practice draws from her upbringing in a rural farming community and shows the influence of syncretic shrines and rituals, and non-logocentric, non-Western metaphysical concepts of empathy for the non-human. Bhat sees her work, in part, as an act of mapping and remapping consciousness, contributing to a spiritual or psychological archive, with an emphasis on the transformative aspects of place.
Bhat has been working with the motif of the calla lily - a symbol of regeneration and resilience. In this transformative biomorphic sculpture of a calla lily bell, Bhat emphasizes the links between human, vegetal and floral forms. By casting a bronze bell in the form of a calla lily, Bhat brings an unexpectedly delicate, ephemeral quality to a rigid and permanent material, evoking both the strength and fragility of an environment whose sustainability is often taken for granted. In a temple, the act of bell ringing is believed to induce mindfulness. In the English Gardens, the bell creates a secular and sacred space celebrating human interconnectedness with the more-than-human.
Words Platform Desk
Date 27.09.2024