While growing up in the midst of a wonder-riddled world, curiosity intoxicates us with the urge to know more. Tons of questions baffle the mind as we try to figure out a pattern, a system and a reason that orders our richly diverse habitat and its constituents. With time, this curiosity dies down a bit, and we get absorbed and swept away in the prescribed, the known, the obvious, the ubiquitous. But what if we decided not to accept these standards? Would we notice a quiet disruption in our conditioned surroundings? Would an anxious rabbit in a waistcoat continuously checking his watch while hurrying away make us run after him?

Revolutionaries talk about the forcible overthrowing of the present order and the imposition of a new system. I would like to offer the potential seeker something else: a secret, fleeting revolution in the form of a quirky moment of freedom and play that blurs the notion of time and place for as long as the viewer is enraptured with it. The moment the viewer switches off his or her attention, the circuit is released and he or she returns back to his or her familiar environment.

Read more about the project 'A Curious Contrast I Chanced Upon'.

Structure

In the experience of 'A Curious Contrast I Chanced Upon', one of the areas I explored through this project was the viewer acting as a switch to initiate and end the interactivity of the piece. In a way, it is reminiscent of a symbiotic relationship, where the piece gains life from the curious person who enters to discover and unravel it while the viewer is transported metaphysically through the experience s/he is immersed in.

The book was inspired from the same concept. It had two sections - ON and OFF. By locking one side of the spine of the book, the reader could access the pages of the 'OFF' chapter and by locking the opposite side of the book, the 'ON' section of the book could be accessed. Therefore the book would work like a switch between the two sections, just like the viewer in the experience.

As an artist, I want the work I create to not only come to life, but communicate with the viewer as well. I'm looking at niches that are ordinary, mundane spaces that people often pass by every day and after the first few times, stop noticing.

I seek spaces that we constantly inhabit or move through, exploring cracks for quiet disruptions, such that the curious viewer could get transported to a place that one cannot access otherwise; that does not exist unless we believe in it.