Oui transfer

Walk into a mock office, open up cupboards, leaf through photographs, listen to ancient Tamil poetry on tape... as an exhibition (that is now also a film) set at the French Institute of Pondicherry seeks to answer the question: Can an archive be more playful than pedantic?

- Gowri S

It looks like someone has hurriedly left their office.

Ona wooden desk ina lamplit recess, an animated computer screen stands mid-scroll. Books, a set of keys and tasteful knickknacks sit on nearby end tables.

Then one notices an unusual element of décor: a translucent parchment screen above the desk. Pressed into it are replicas of plant specimens.

A10-metre scroll unrolls from ceiling to floor nearby, holding rows and rows of entries (more on this in a bit).

One of the books on the desk turns out to hold Sangam-era poetry in the original Tamil. A cabinet nearby turns out to be a repository of images drawn from a long-gone Pondicherry.

Past and present, history and lore, art and archive merge in the exhibition titled Sleepwalker Archives, hosted by the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP) to mark its 70th anniversary.

The institute's yellow-and-white structure, typical of Puducherry’s White Town, and its stained-glass windows, vintage furniture and teak bookcases were roped into the interactive exhibition too.