The Hashtag# Collective art show Kaalam reimagines the idea of time

As 1 steps into the constrictive passageway starring to Gallery OED successful Mattancherry, 1 encounters graffiti with a chiseled comic-book aesthetic, featuring wavy lines, bold colours, and interspersed forms. And past you spot the artwork, Kaalam, by the Hashtag# Collective suspended successful the air: acrylic letters of the Malayalam alphabet, a poem that speaks of the transition of time. One gets to beryllium with the thought of time, the impermanence and the quickness of its passage.  

Walking nether the poem overhead, determination is an unmistakable consciousness of walking done time, reinforced by the information that it is nether the elements — the entity above, the world beneath and the aerial passing done it, making the words bob successful the air. It acquires a definite tangibility erstwhile expressed this way.  

Rather simplistic and childlike, it is thing but. It has a meditative quality, making 1 contemplate the thought of clip oregon alternatively the cognition of time. The acrylic letters bespeak light, which often filters done it. “Materiality plays a cardinal relation successful shaping the experience,” the artists’ enactment says. Neon signage, mural and graffiti interventions by Apoorv Dutt, suspended acrylic Malayalam letterforms, painted surfaces, conceptual text, and a three-dimensional anamorphic rendering of the connection Kaalam make up the art. “These elements are integrated straight into the architectural cloth of the courtyard, activating walls, thresholds, and sightlines portion continuously altering cognition done light, reflection, and distortion,” the enactment adds.

The Hashtag# Collective comprises artist/writer Parvathi Nayar, decorator Abin Chaudhuri, creator Saira Biju and designer Biju Kuriakose. Parvathi’s poem, Kaalam: Time’s Ferocious Timeline, translated/adapted into Malayalam by Saira, lies astatine the bosom of the work, which Parvathi says, “functions much arsenic a conceptual model alternatively than a narrative, informing the installation’s rhythm, sequencing, and spatial interruptions. Materiality plays a cardinal relation successful shaping the experience.” 

A multi-disciplinary artist, Parvathi Nayar’s signifier spans analyzable drafting processes, video, installations, text, and photography. Known for her signature black-and-white graphite drawings, Parvathi’s creator exploration is done the lens of science, technology, and biology consciousness.

Her works include BreatheWater at The Esplanade Art Centre, Singapore (2022); Chicken Run at the Chennai Photo Biennale (2021–22); the iconic 20-foot “drawn sculpture” A Story of Flight at Mumbai Airport’s T2 Terminal; and The Fluidity of Horizons at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014/15) among others. 

Biju Kuriakose is the co-founder of architectureRED, a Chennai-based architecture and municipality plan practice. A Master’s grade holder successful Architecture and Urban Design from Pratt Institute, New York, Biju’s enactment spans divers scales — from ample municipality readying projects to institutional, commercial, urban, and agrarian lodging developments. Abin Chaudhury, a postgraduate of Jadavpur University, Kolkata and an Industrial Design alumnus of Domus Academy, Milan, is the laminitis of Abin Design Studio (ADS).

Saira Biju is an creator whose signifier has been shaped by her long-standing engagement with creation from schoolhouse done college, adjacent portion pursuing non-art world degrees astatine Stella Maris College, Chennai. Her clip astatine the School of Visual Arts, New York, strengthened her instauration successful ceremonial experimentation, peculiarly astir the interplay of subject, medium, and method — an attack that continues to pass her work. 

Meanwhile Sindhura VS is an designer and municipality decorator who uses spatial and ocular storytelling to trade immersive, narrative-driven experiences. Apoorv Dutt is simply a ocular creator known for a distinctive storytelling benignant that blends philosophy, humour, and bold graphic discipline. The laminitis of Vividiti Designs and main creator of “Franklyapooooorv,” her signifier transforms idiosyncratic and societal chaos into visually structured narratives. 

Kaalam, connected astatine Gallery OED, Mattancherry, concludes connected March 31.