This book includes four bodies of works developed around Bengal Borderlands which were shown at different venues across several years. It can also be just a filler, in case you have seen one set of works and not the others. So it becomes an encounter with a practice from a particular period. Besides, it also includes some earlier works so links can be formed with the longer journey.
A book presents an opportunity to have in-depth texts on the works - here by Sunil Khilnani, Anushka Rajendran and Thomas Theil and I am so grateful for their very considered reflections.
So it seems that a book can offer more than a single show – still it can’t quite substitute the spatial experience of an exhibition where the scale, materiality and juxtaposing of objects all converge together in creating a sensation and meaning. The book, then, creates an afterlife for artworks and like all memories, it can’t replace the event, and modifies and retains some parts while recalling it via stories.
