Abundance of sensory cues at Auroville art expo

An evocative show by Auroville-based installation artist Ok Jeong Lee is on till February 11 at the Centre d’Art in the universal township.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

An evocative show by Auroville-based installation artist Ok Jeong Lee is on till February 11 at the Centre d’Art in the universal township.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

With her new exhibition, Auroville-based installation artist Ok Jeong Lee organises a walk-through of twilight zone of sorts filled with an abundance of sensory stimuli; akin to navigating a disorientating, dim-lit passage before that grateful re-embracing of light.

Lee’s ‘In the Middle and After’ expo is hosted by the Centre d’Art in Auroville.

Visitors walk through long strips of cut-up vines made from scraps left over from the manufacture of COVID masks. As you turn a corner, the visitor discovers sculptural objects, silky paintings, metal flowers, hybrid creatures, and strange totems embedded in the fabric vegetation.

The path ends, and one emerges into a bright, vast space. Hundreds of compact discs form sparkling rivers on the ground, an open and refreshing sea. The artist has scattered the space with benches and seats, all of which are playful and colourful works of art: transparent suitcases for time travellers, woven chairs, and cloud-like foam cushions. Recycled materials speak of crucial themes, such as memory, the organisation of life and the environment, and the hope for a more spiritual future.

“As in the fairy tales of your childhood, you walk forward, torn between apprehension and wonder, in the dim light of a forest that filters out the light of the outside world,” says Dominique Jacques who has curated the show.

According to the Centre d’Art, Lee’s installation is a metaphor for the succession of unprecedented crises facing the world, a state of permanent disruption with no apparent end in sight. It explores the capacity of humans, as transitional beings, to evolve and face a process of transformation towards new realities, emphasising the experience of living a situation from within rather than observing it from the outside.

In this respect, it echoes the ‘Relational Aesthetics’ theorised by French art historian Nicolas Bourriaud, according to whom works of art, beyond their form or style, contribute to creating new inter-human relationships and a new sensibility.

Lee, a resident of Auroville since 2008, began her upcycling project in 2011, following more than 25 years of work as a fashion designer in Korea. She explores upcycling as both an artistic and social practice, honouring discarded materials as carriers of memory and transformation.

Through workshops and exhibitions in France and India, she has shared the philosophy of upcycling as a way of life.

The expo is on till February 11 (Tuesday through Friday 2 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.)