In her recent exhibition ‘It Was Never Concrete’, Ayesha Singh used the cityscape of Delhi as her palette. She took on the city of her childhood and peeled it through the lens of architecture, both personal and public. Like a deconstructed dish, she presented Delhi through its most elemental components: history, architecture, power, identity and time. Curator Anushka Rajendran says, “[It Was Never Concrete] picked up on history and talked about how certain ideas that we constantly periodise — such as colonisation and Empire — are actually equally relevant when read in a contemporary context as through the lens of history.” Edited excerpts from an interview:
Where does this ambitious idea of using an entire city originate? And how closely do you need to know a city before you can bring it into your work?
The first time I started looking at architecture, I was still completing my undergraduate programme. There is this objectivity that comes in when you move away or feel displaced from the place you grew up in.
I started looking at architecture from a structure in Hauz Khas, which has a ‘form equals function’ top half and its lower half resembles ornamentation in Hindu temple architecture. I began to consider where these specificities come from. Does it embody a hybridity that I am familiar with? It expanded into the architecture of the city and its colonial history and, through that lens, I reached my childhood home.
This is where the personal comes into play. The house I had grown up in had these columns that did not necessarily follow any classical order, but alluded to it. Where was it coming from? Where are its connotations placed in history, and what does it mean for them to cover the façade of a home?
How do you feel architecture and power develop to have such a close relationship? What would be the nature of this relationship?
Beginning from the way architecture divides and holds space to then thinking about the way we’re separated from it was my starting point. For example, with Rashtrapati Bhavan, as citizens — as people that recognise themselves as Indians or Dilliwalas — we are not allowed to enter this space without applying and divulging personal information, pending approval. Other spaces, like the steps at Jantar Mantar, specific areas of the Red Fort, cannot be entered.
Achitecture also uses scale to produce such perceived power. Rashtrapati Bhavan is situated atop Raisina Hill. It rises up from you, above you, and forms that visual hierarchy. There’s nothing else in its periphery, it forms the horizon and there is no sight of the built city around it, only the sky. The Viceroy’s House was designed by Lutyens, who was taking elements from English and Mughal architecture, looking at palaces and such spaces that already embody connotations of power. And that’s where authority comes from. What is protected? What is not protected? Where are we allowed to enter? Gated communities — where the security guard shuts the gates and where your cars need stickers to pass through — are still exclusionary tactics that change the way we experience the city.
How do you think identity connects to a city’s architecture? Being a Delhiite, what are the symbols you identify with and how does that relationship evolve? Aren’t those symbols themselves appropriated or modified by the powers that be?
A sense of belonging is very personal, but it’s also state-induced. It’s also induced by the way certain ideologies are marketed to you — including that of the nation. Familiarity and memory, things I have touched and places I have been in. Where I know the interiors just by looking at the exteriors. I am also very interested in how the availability of materials, labour and skill change what you see in your environment. When was the skill of marble inlaying in vogue, and where was it really being used? This shows us how you could otherwise ‘identify’ different cultures, different religions, and how these links start to get blurred in a more positive way.
What about the idea or role of perspective? In your works, you explore how the position from which you observe something changes or affects your perception of it.
When Anushka and I started planning this exhibition, the general elections had just taken place. We spoke about how context really changes the conversation, how it makes it more relatable or evocative. How these works will be re-contextualised in, say, the next three years. I think a parallel can be made that perspective is to architecture what context is to conversation.
Do you think it’s a conscious choice for people to appropriate these architectural symbols of power in their homes?
You see so many houses now in South Delhi, such as Civil Lines, for example. I have heard and read about architects complaining how clients want a French chateau or an American ranch in the middle of Delhi. Some of these desires don’t work well with our environment, weather or materials that are locally available. It is still in play; I don’t think they are subconscious choices.
What are your thoughts on separating art from the artist? Can you separate the coloniser from the columns? Should we even attempt to do so?
You can’t. That’s our history, and it is important to know it to be able to do the opposite, rather than perpetuate the same thing. To be able to question it, put a full stop and re-imagine the landscape. We end up with a unique hypothesis. Perhaps if our cities were devoid of historical baggage, if we arrived in a city without the knowledge of its hierarchies and appreciated each element for its aesthetic, maybe then we’d be able to get along better as a society. On the other hand, perhaps a clean slate is vulnerable to new authors and their agendas.
The writer is a freelance author and illustrator.
