What are you working on at the moment?
I am working towards my upcoming solo exhibition at the PalaisPopulaire in September as part of Deutsche Bank’s ›Artist of the Year‹ 2024. The show ›Borrowed Light‹, my first solo exhibition in Germany, is an exploration of the deeply entangled relationship between site, observer and sky, revealing work informed by my two-decade long engagement with astronomy. ›Borrowed Light‹, a term drawn from architecture, means reflected light, or light ›borrowed‹ from an adjoining space to light an otherwise dark room or passage. For me, ›Borrowed Light‹ speaks to the experience of all who look up to the sky and stars. The works include my new four-channel video installation, ›One Hundred Thousand Suns‹ which brings into conversation the geometry of the Earth, Moon and Sun, alongside conjunctions of event and site.
Do you have a daily ritual?
I try to start work in the studio between 9 and 9.30 AM every day. I am most productive in the morning, so I try and do the work that requires most attention then, whether that is editing, research, writing or drawing. Sometimes I work in the evening, but it is rarely as productive.
What do you listen to while working?
It depends on what I am working on. Research and writing go best with instrumental music, some favourites are the soundtrack of ›Pride and Prejudice‹ by Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Alexandre Desplat, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, ›The Planets‹ by Gustav Holst, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy etc. If something requires particular focus, I go deep into ›The Dune‹ Trilogy of audiobooks by Frank Herbert narrated by Scott Brick. When I work on larger site-specific drawing works then its more Dance, Electronic, House etc.
Which book do you like to gift?
That’s an impossible question! The book depends on the person.
Which art work would you like to have at home?
Any one of Neha Choksi’s ›Sky Fold‹ or Amar Kanwar’s ›Letter‹ series. Anything by Kiki Smith and Zarina Hashmi.
Your favourite exhibition venue in Berlin?
I was last in Berlin in 2016, so it’s been a while! But I have enjoyed seeing work at Hamburger Bahnhof, HKW and Schering Stiftung.
What accessory or object could you not be without?
My phone and my reading glasses.
What keeps you going?
A sense of wonder and curiosity. Also, coffee!
Who would you like to meet?
Dead or still with us? If the former then C.V. Raman, who asked a simple but profound question ›Why is the sea blue?‹. He was the first Indian and first non-white scientist to win the Nobel Prize in Physics (1930) for his work on the scattering of light. Author Carl Sagan and actor Leonard Nimoy (aka Spock from ›Star Trek‹) whose books and TV shows instilled a passion for space and the stars in a generation of children world over. Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin for their extraordinary visions of a more complicated and entangled world. If still with us then, Shah Rukh Khan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, RuPaul, Suga/Agust D, the cast of ›House of the Dragon‹.
What do you look forward to after you’ve finished work?
At the end of each day’s work, I look forward to spending time with family, food, music and something interesting to watch. But if this means at the end of ›a‹ work or project then I usually work on several things at the same time, so when I’m finished with one project, I take some time off and then dive into the next.