Tribute to cities

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Richa Arora poses with her work

Like many other shows Urbane Reflections — The Pleasures and the Strife at Gallery Ragini in Delhi sets out to explore the city, the lived environment inhabited by vast populations that includes artists who portray it as an emblematic city, embodying the characteristics of all cities that are changing fast.

However, in this particular exhibition the emphasis is less on the strife and more on the celebration of the life in the city, which is actually as illusionary and ephemeral as the mediums that enable such celebrations.
This spirit is embodied in the works of Mukta Wadhwa such as Mann Na Manam, Na Mann Manam a quote from Hazrat Shah Niyaz Barelvi which means I am not, yet I am. The inclusive vision of the Sufi pirs, saints, invites all to come to the dargah for prayers, solace, peace, and music by losing one’s own identity and merging it with that of the Almighty. This erasure of the self makes the dargahs — islands of peace and tranquility. The white latticed windows with red threads of hope and aspirations tied to it make a powerful visual in Mukta’s three dimensional paper constructions. The other element of colour is suggested by the red/crimson of rose petals that are strewn on the shrines. In all the colour of emotions, the silence of devotion remains white.
Richa Arora excavates the urban experience from a more personal point of view that allows men and women to continue living the alienated, challenging struggling life, carping and complaining but never leaving. This phenomenon parallels that of love, when everyone talks of heartbreak, commercialisation and over exploitation of the concept of love through media and market but never really let’s go of it either. The hearts and the butterflies exemplify this in her works, that along the sparrows have been banished from urban spaces, just like genuine emotions but then may be they are gone/ may be we have stopped looking — she asks through her tactile paper works.