Metamorphosis – Change and Continuity
Radha Lakshmi, Meena Vari“…….in Franz Kafka’s short story “The Metamorphosis,” that we meet Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman that awakens one morning only to find himself in the unfortunate position of having been transformed into a giant insect. Despite this fact, Gregor preserves his human faculties of reason and feeling and struggles to maintain his relationships with the family members that depend on him for, if nothing else, financial support. Throughout the story, it is not only Gregor, but also the rest of his family that undergoes metamorphoses….”
Metamorphosis – Change and Continuity brings together established and upcoming artists from different parts of India who have an experimental spirit and freshness of vision. The exhibition reflects the impact of changes in the cultural landscape, due to the last changing social, economical, and technological scenarios. It will highlight the relation between form and time, fusion and unraveling, and the constant negotiations across a broad range of cultures and time spans. On the one hand, they are the representations of the local, trans-local, cultural, and historical on the other; they release it from the local by connecting it to universal cultural practices, yet remaining rooted.
The works are concerns and reflections of long-term continuities and discontinuities in the social structures, transformed urban landscapes, personal histories, and cultural traditions at the same time competing with forces of war, globalization, and changing human values and practices. Tendencies like migration and urbanization have a
significant impact on all aspects of society, like social structure, environment, institutions, and culture. The conception and execution of the works is an account of the universalism and cultural hybridization. It sites the tensions that exist between change and continuity with regard to the legacy of the modern movement, to the ideas of Zeitgeist – its ideas and its practices, and progress through technology and other means.