Saline Notations
2014
digital prints on Hahnemuhle Photorag archival paper
23 x 33 in. l 58 x 84 cm each
The ongoing series of text based works in salt have an element of surrender, left to be washed by the rush of the tide, be blown away by the strength of a draft, or simply be trampled under the callousness of careless feet. This renunciation of the outcome of the arduous process of marking not only resonate the ascetic solemnity of the work but reiterate the disarmingly simple questions posed through them; what resilient residues of memory are we capable of leaving behind in the face of the eternal, infinite forces of time and nature and how can that which remains be given form?
That the salt texts are a temporary presence is emphasized not only by the susceptibility of the works to the thronging crowd on the beach or the nearness of the sea but also by our experiential knowledge of the depleting vigor of time. Their unmitigated submission to the caprice of the variables of nature, incorporates time as a crucial element of the production of the work, investing it with authorial function. For if its placement in public space allows for people to interact with, walk past, tread on and interrupt it, then its location amidst natural forces also allows for time to interact, change and finally erase the salt texts. This ultimate erasure is both a logical outcome of the work as well as a critical stage in its being.
Further facilitating the works interplay with time are deliberations regarding the movement of the sun and intricate computational charts involving tidal calendars, sunset timings etc., which form an unseen, and unlikely, backdrop to the fleeting presence of the salt texts and, in so doing extend the apparent tenure of the work and intensify its engagement with time in a manner indiscernible to the viewer.
