Unfamiliar Tales, 2008
Photo: Michael Strasser
Photo: Michael Strasser
Collection
2 lenticular images, 2 découpé texts in acrylic
each approx. 61 x 91 cm
The photographic and text work Unfamiliar Tales by Raqs Media Collective elaborates on and reinvents the lightly humorous and moral subtext of the Jataka fables incorporated by both Burmese and Tibetan Buddhism. Unfamiliar Tales was conceived as a response to the political situation in Burma and Tibet for the exhibition "A Question of Evidence" at T-B A21 in 2008.
"The Burma and Tibet angle set us off in the direction of thinking about intellectual, ethical and emotional resources within the Buddhist canon, and we thought of invoking the agile, light humor - and moral depth - of the Jataka Tales (which are common to both the Hinayana and Mahayana traditions, and would have currency in Burmese as well as Tibetan Buddhism) as possible grounds on which to situate a new work. The work itself is a paired diptych with two images and two very short stories inspired by the Jataka tradition (rather, drafts of stories, with corrections, cancellations, highlighting and over-writing retained). (...)
We propose to call the work Unfamiliar Tales. It will consist of a pair of image-text diptychs titled "How The Most Terrible Solitude Was Overcome" and "How the Long Wait for the Thaw was Endured". The work will feature treated photographic images and text (in metal) inscriptions cut into acrylic. The texts are very short stories, two new tales, (written by us, of equal length). Unfamiliar Tales takes the universal potential for enlightenment (that the Jataka Tales point to) as its fulcrum in order to narrate two modes of being that approximate a state of "not-self'-ness" a manner of sentience that locates its origin and existence within a web of dependence and reciprocity that encompasses the ever-changing nature of the material universe. To us, it is the willful, or involuntary setting aside of the recognition of this web of dependence and reciprocity that lies at the root of all tyranny." – Raqs Media Collective
Jeebesh Bagchi: *1965 in New Delhi, India
Monica Narula: *1969 in New Delhi, India
Shuddhabrata Sengupta: *1968 in New Delhi, India
Living and working in New Delhi, India
each approx. 61 x 91 cm
The photographic and text work Unfamiliar Tales by Raqs Media Collective elaborates on and reinvents the lightly humorous and moral subtext of the Jataka fables incorporated by both Burmese and Tibetan Buddhism. Unfamiliar Tales was conceived as a response to the political situation in Burma and Tibet for the exhibition "A Question of Evidence" at T-B A21 in 2008.
"The Burma and Tibet angle set us off in the direction of thinking about intellectual, ethical and emotional resources within the Buddhist canon, and we thought of invoking the agile, light humor - and moral depth - of the Jataka Tales (which are common to both the Hinayana and Mahayana traditions, and would have currency in Burmese as well as Tibetan Buddhism) as possible grounds on which to situate a new work. The work itself is a paired diptych with two images and two very short stories inspired by the Jataka tradition (rather, drafts of stories, with corrections, cancellations, highlighting and over-writing retained). (...)
We propose to call the work Unfamiliar Tales. It will consist of a pair of image-text diptychs titled "How The Most Terrible Solitude Was Overcome" and "How the Long Wait for the Thaw was Endured". The work will feature treated photographic images and text (in metal) inscriptions cut into acrylic. The texts are very short stories, two new tales, (written by us, of equal length). Unfamiliar Tales takes the universal potential for enlightenment (that the Jataka Tales point to) as its fulcrum in order to narrate two modes of being that approximate a state of "not-self'-ness" a manner of sentience that locates its origin and existence within a web of dependence and reciprocity that encompasses the ever-changing nature of the material universe. To us, it is the willful, or involuntary setting aside of the recognition of this web of dependence and reciprocity that lies at the root of all tyranny." – Raqs Media Collective
Jeebesh Bagchi: *1965 in New Delhi, India
Monica Narula: *1969 in New Delhi, India
Shuddhabrata Sengupta: *1968 in New Delhi, India
Living and working in New Delhi, India