Advertisements by real estate firms promoting their luxurious projects nestled in the lap of nature are all over television, print, radio and hoardings across the city. Amused by the words and phrases used in these advertisements to entice buyers, French artist living in Mumbai Soazic Guezennec has based her new line of works titled Happy Homes .
She has used phrases like ‘sky nest’, ‘the cascade’, ‘banyan tree’ that are used to name buildings and has painted works of her interpretation of what a building with such a name should look like. She has used a digital rendition of a building over which she has painted to create works that ridicule the advertiser, and question the buyer for falling for such campaigns.
Apart from the artworks she has also made, an animated video in which buildings turn into waterfalls and mushrooms invade the city. She has printed flyers that are displayed on tables that resemble a real estate firm’s office which you can pick up before heading in to view the exhibition.
To make the display more interactive, viewers can take stickers and paste them on the home they wish to buy and become a part of the real estate dream.
Soazic says she is not against the advertising industry but often wonders how people get influenced by the idea of nature that is presented by these companies. She says her work is more like a dream and with the amazing advances in architecture she wonders if architects will actually draw from nature to create buildings like she has imagined.
The exhibition is on at Galerie Romain Rolland, Alliance Française de Delhi till February 1.
