Featuring:
Tehmeena Firdos, Ruchika Singh Wason, Pinaki Ranjan Mohanty, Kundan
Mondal, Manish Sharma, Tapas Biswas, Soham Raha, Nityanand Ojha, Siri Devi
Khandavilli and Vinod Daroz.
‘Our Line in The Sand’, proposes a cross-disciplinary analytical
framework for investigating the ways in which, things have become
cognitive extensions of the human body. Using a variety of examples and case
studies, Malafouris considers how those ways might have changed from earliest
prehistory to the present. Malafouris's Material Engagement Theory
definitively adds materiality—the world of things, artefacts, and material
signs—into the cognitive equation. His account not only questions conventional
intuitions about the boundaries and location of the human mind but also
suggests that we rethink classical archaeological assumptions about human
cognitive evolution. My curatorial hypothesis would be that, mark-making
constitutes a salient point of intersection between matter and memory; one in
which the plasticity of the mind becomes entangled with the plasticity (or
stability) of material culture. I would propose that the meaning of
intentionality in mark making is that of intention in action, that is,
intention which is inseparable from the mark making process. Mark-making is
essentially a skill and instead of asking ‘what are they marks ‘of’?’ we should
be asking ‘what did the marks do? Both philosophically and
artistically, the curatorial proposition would be interested in creating a
space for creative synergy of movements, that originates and connects different
materials and parts of the human experiences. The forming of marks as
material signs brings about similar enactive projections, flexibly and
partially objectified as part of an expressive creative process. In that sense,
the challenge would be to imagine and produce knowledge around mark-making activities
and how such processes can also be described and understood as ‘epistemic
actions’.
Monica Jain
Curator-Director