2007-2009
78 x 57.5 x 12 in. I 198 x 146 x 30 cm
acrylic paint, rubberstamps, plexiglas
Synonym, invokes the vulnerability of the citizen in the face of a megalopolis or a state, which often reduces them to abstract statistics or names in a record book. The works appear as screens featuring portraits composed of hundreds of rubber stamps, each carrying the name of a person officially registered as having gone missing in India, drawn from different geographical zones and rendered in over 14 Indian languages. Viewed from a distance, the stamps coalesce into recognizable images, but up-close the faces disintegrate into pixelated fragments, reducing each lively feature to a circuit-board of stamps announcing a universe of names.
These are individuals who have slipped through the cracks of communication, fallen outside the social safety net. The back of the portrait of a sub-continental citizen appears like a sea of invisible identities, serving as a reminder of the complex, often fractured mosaic that forms a nation. While democracy in theory enfranchised every citizen, granting them voice and agency in electoral power, however in practice its depth and expanse often consumes the individual entity, rendering them (and, in the process, their individual rights) invisible. Synonym invites reflection on the intricate relationship between identity and the bureaucratic systems that can both record and obscure the human stories behind the names.
