​​​​PRAGYA BHARGAVA

A Tale of Anachronic Ruins

 

When nature endows human creations with a patina of age, ruins arise. They lure us with their incompleteness, trap our imaginations and leave us adrift in time.  The contemporary ruin-gaze is one affected by the rapidly transforming modern society and also one informed by a rich history of ruin lust, it is an acceptance of the contrapuntal relationship of human, historical and natural temporalities and a submission to spatial discontinuity, speculative past and natural decay.

 

 ‘A Tale of Ananchronic Ruins’ acknowledges and responds to the tension of contrasts inherent in the nature of ruins by bridging the gaps between the romantic and classic, ephemeral and continuous, destruction and survival, and disappearance and visibility. It is inspired by the transcendental nature of ruins in their romantic decay as venerable fragments of the past. There is a yearning in the melancholic return of great civilizations to nature and there is hope for the present for all is not yet lost. From the ruins of old civilizations, emerge new civilizations and the cycle repeats. 

 

Using the narrative capacity of photography, image transfer and drawing, these works weave together these three distinct processes to talk about how time and nature have continued to shape ruins through years of molding. They look to reconstruct the past, bask in the present and contemplate the future.