A springboard for art and experimentation

The fifth edition of the Jaipur Art Week features works by early- and mid-career artists and aims to be an incubator for experimental practices

- Meera Menezes

When the former ruler of Jaipur, Sawai Madho Singh II, decided to sail the seas in 1902 to attend King Edward VII's coronation in England, it created quite a stir.

An ocean voyage was considered a sin at the time, polluting the soul and leading to a loss of caste. The only way the Maharaja could circumvent that was by participating in a host of rituals, which included carting thousands of litres of Gangajal on his ship to London. Flash forward a century and the story provides a springboard for multidisciplinary artist Boris Colin Alphonse’s installation, What We Carry When We Cross, at the upcoming Jaipur Art Week: Edition 5.0. (JAW 5.0)

Alphonse’s speculative artwork at the Gyan Museum consists of a fragmented ship hull accompanied by diagrammatic instructions. “The work invites viewers to imagine their own contemporary kala pani: the boundaries they fear crossing, the rituals they invent for protection, and the materials—visible or invisible—that they would choose to carry. The ship becomes less a vehicle of travel than a tool for reflection,” explains the artist.