Seven Constellations (2016-Ongoing)
Two of Seven Constellations - On Fractured Timekeeping
My Aunty visited a medium after my Uncle died, the medium described a watch to her, in detail, and was asked to give it to my father, a modest, Casio Moon-phase watch that belonged to my departed uncle, black metal with a golden trim, golden dials and golden hands, complete with a startling ultramarine blue and gold moon phase dial.
When I came across it my Dad told me I could wear it if I could get it to work again. Off I went to a shop to get a new battery I was returned the watch, happy to have it working again at last after many years, to my sadness the watch stopped once again within a few weeks of having it working. I took it to a local jewellers and asked them if they could repair it, they tried, but did not succeed, they even took the time to get in contact with Casio to see if they still had any of these parts in circulation or production, they did not.
There I was, left longing for a connection to my uncle who I never had the chance to meet, whom I was told, I would have had a great affinity with. My uncle was a talented draughtsman, with the touch of an artist, he once built a sailing boat in his garage with my Dad. With his stopped watch in hand I set off to connect with him in a language that I knew, within and beyond time.
It is said that a stopped watch is right twice a day, add the phases of the moon to that equation and the watches fractured scale of time is expanded outwards.
These two sculptures come from a series of seven constellations mapping different points in time and space in an exhibition from the past, several of the collection are dispersed between different family members, friends and owners, they too have been affected by time, the film of ink on top of the surfaces bear imperfections, subjected to other objects they come into contact with, from traveling, storage, and interaction the objects age and weather.
The notion of time is explored in the objects; through charting star constellations that are reworked onto abstract forms, which are inspired by Giotto’s frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua - famed for its blue ceiling adorned with the stars of heaven. Brass is used in the practice of Horology, in particular the moon-phase dials that appear on certain watches. Stars often feature in these dials but have no relative place of their own, they become merely decorative, in the sculptures they are seen as actual constellations given purpose beyond decoration. Traces of a past event captured but never the same again.
In talking with Roo, I discovered that she had a similar experience after she lost her India Wali Chachi, she saw a medium and the medium spoke of a watch that she had left for Roo in Punjab, it was a Casio Gold Watch with a twenty four hour digital face, Roo was very fond of this watch, unfortunately, when she returned to the village she discovered that relatives had given away Chachi’s belongings to the local villagers. Roo tells me that perhaps this was Chachi’s seva ਸੇਵਾ.
I have had the privilege of watching Roo weave these manjia - which poorly translates to daybed in English. A manji is not just a bed, but a place, a space, for reflection, for dining, for communal gatherings, for drying vegetables, for sitting together, for rest, for meetings, and for lying under the stars. In collaborating with Roo Dhissou in the space, the largest of the three manji, Ahram ਆਰਾਮ is a space in which to not only rest, but to contemplate these objects, these disembodied clocks that tell stories of departure and finding, of place and of space, of time and of family.
Ahram, Cygnus, Serpens (2022) Collaboration with Roo Dhissou