hey hey guys I’m sage and so I’m going
to talk about a little bit about my
practice how it comes about and and
we’ll also see some films so I’m a
sculptor but that’s kind of a limited
way of describing what I do what I
actually really kind of make is stories
or at least like things that you can
like the viewer and like I mean I see
myself as a viewer as well can make
stories out of right so essentially what
you have like even with the image behind
me are these characters and then there
are these objects and artifacts and that
looks like they might belong to this
alternate civilization or might belong
to some error in the past or 5,000 years
into the future all collapsing into our
timeline and kind of erupting into her
every day so this began like in in art
school like when I graduated I started
doing these performances that were sort
of like these any rituals of movement
throughout well they began at the
bandura skywalk I are in Bombay which is
what you see behind me this is shrouded
kind of costume that I made of this
shaman like being so yeah like you had
this and and all of the sort of fabric
used on the costume was actually stuff
that I found I mean not a very nice
image but like a basically it was like
kind of these swatches that I found in a
in the cotan book and pieces like
polyester fur and I decided to stitch it
together and make this costume out which
is essentially how I work even now like
I work with things that I find and try
to look for what is the possible
and looking for histories within those
objects so this was like the first in a
series of kind of performances where I
dress up and kind of move through like
usually through spaces with commute so
like the Skywalk here and then through
the well this goes into the Tobit allow
subway like no the second performance
yeah so this was in the movie that
allows subway in Bombay and the subway
itself has these like really heavy
acoustics so what I decided to do was
create this didgeridoo which is like a
instrument that’s played by Aborigines
from Australia and there’s a similar
kind of instrument that’s played by but
this month now the one that I made
though was out of PVC pipes and this
branch but anyway and then I was playing
it in this hexagonal subway and what
happened was like because of the
acoustics of the subway if we make a
loud enough sound the entire space kind
of you know reverberates with the noise
of the didgeridoo
and it became a way of like almost
extending that instrument into the space
now now that was the kind of gesture of
the performance but then what happened
was like it like people who were viewing
it sort of started saying oh are there
two of them which is kind of fun like
you know it’s this spectral character
who’s just you know extended through
noise you know now I mean going forward
like you know I kind of decided to make
more characters where I got my friends
to dress up as well and kind of almost
create this um this fictional kind of
anthropology if these these characters
that are sort of you know entering into
our world and then so you have these
kind of you know almost ethnographic
kind of portraits that you take that we
would find in museums or
or what have you you know they come in
they’ll being looked at and this was
being documented and in order to be
understood or like I kind of classified
in a way but they can’t be because they
essentially they’re all kind of like
they put together through this kind of
collage or rather that that ultimately
is this absurd thing now a little more
on collage or what I what was not
collage I mean like so this the kind of
way in which I work is there’s this term
for it called bricolage which kind of
approximates Dugard
you know like where you kind of begin
with a few set of things and then that
just kind of spirals and snowballs into
larger structures so i began creating
these characters and then that kind of
like began to sort of evolve and like
kind of snowball into this larger kind
of evolving narrative meta-narrative of
this civilization and then I started
making yeah that’s I’m also a straw was
nerd so like this is always going to be
like a bit of a wink to that yeah so
like I mean I started making objects
that could have been like you know
animals or like insects or beings that
could belong in that in this
civilization except that everything that
goes into these sculptures is like coat
whatever I could like literally get my
handle and then so there’s a lot of
dumpster diving involved in my practice
like that’s where I get all my guy know
that’s actually the one that I put
together two days back at the pav Bhajji
Lord Museum in Bombay which is we just
finished it’s 150 years since it was
made interestingly the museum itself
began in 1857
it was conceptualized in 1855 and then
following the you know the first mutiny
the first war of independence this
museum was put together as a really kind
of fascinating museum because through
its lifetime it’s it’s I mean the
objects in the museum have have kind of
seen the mutiny they’ve seen and I mean
they’ve helped through these you know
the the mutiny the the Bombay plague the
partition independence and its aftermath
and and these objects has sort of set
out to kind of you know kind of see even
more like I mean as we kind of lived
through these really trying times the
object I mean the structure that I put
together was actually made using objects
from the museum so this is like I know
storage of space okay so interestingly
the museum is it’s the colonial era
museum and it’s made in next to a zoo
and a Botanical Garden so so the way it
was looked at I mean the way it
functioned was like you know you’d see
animals in one place you’d see any
plants of this colony in one space and
in the museum you would see the people
and there it was and it was set up by
the East India Company and then ever
since them you like like the museum was
kind of refurbished it’s kind of taken
on this let’s call it post-colonial kind
of case where it’s we I mean attempting
to reevaluate its own you know it’s kind
of troubled past so it invites artists
to kind of like kind of respond to its
history and things like that so what I
did was I kind of very kind of almost
directly physic
can bring objects that were sort of
thrown away and put into storage in the
museum
now this storage of the museum is in the
zoo right and it’s in this like a
holding your area where they would keep
nocturnal animals so you have like I
mean bits like good and like broken
pieces of artwork that were once shown
in the museum in this case we’re at once
you know new nocturnal animals were kept
anyway so the the bones furred like
whatever that creature is were in this
weird space and then they kind of take
this form right now I’m going to be
showing you work from a kind of again
sort of running series of works that
have been making this began in Kochi in
in Kerala in 2014 when I was invited to
be part of the Kochi Missouri’s biennial
now it’s called the couch EMU series
biennial and missouri’s is this a
ancient port city it’s almost like
India’s first or you know the landmass
that was that is now known as India the
first kind of port to this place and
Pliny the Elder kind of makes a note of
it as well and says that there were
pirates in this area now interestingly
now missouri’s is all but lost and there
are these like kind of seven or eight
alleged sites where it might be existing
and this is kind of strange history
writing project that’s happening in
these in this place where the ESI is
finding objects that were there are old
like you know fragments of terracotta
which is essentially what the first
thing that you would find and any dig
side you find bits of broken pots and
then toys and then you know as you go
further in you’d find even bits of metal
so now what’s happening is like in these
dig sites there’s this kind of you know
narrative building kind of structure
sorry narrative building exercises going
on where people are finding bits and
pieces of like you know carved out
terracotta and somehow like seeing
saying that it built they belong from
the Vedic age Mozilla’s predates the
Vedas as well so I mean I don’t know
what’s going on over there anyway now so
for my project at the Kojima series
biennial I was there for about eight
months and I created about eight hundred
and fifty sculptures some of them really
small tiny that can fit in the palm of
your hand some of them were very larger
and you’d find them in this kind of
disused laboratory space so when you
kind of encounter them you see them as
these specimens that were being studied
or examined from this yeah some of them
were kind of large so they look like
they were being studied and then
abandoned in this laboratory that was
kind of like you know can you just put
left behind so it was kind of like
sixteen little cubicles a lot of clay
and and the objects themselves and it
looked like these robots with these like
twiddling kind of appendages some of
them look like bits of toys or things
you would find in like you know sci-fi
films or Lord of the Rings or whatever
and some of them just look like you know
agricultural tools so you have like a
really kind of like rich civilization
that got left behind and the idea was
like you know I mean if we are kind of
rewriting or like making sense of
history in this place then what what
happens when you kind of put you know
absurd things like an inverted pyramid
in it like anyway so with that like and
anyway so this that project kinda
extended into another exhibition that
I’d like another sort of project that I
did at the liver
in 2016 which is on similar grounds also
interestingly that’s when like so the
work behind me was like installed on the
day on I think June 26th when the brexit
vote happened and this culture behind it
is actually a again a colonial eras
culture that says every man must do his
duty under the crown and it has these
like slaves on it and you could feel the
tension in the air when we were
installing it and so broken things and
repurposed objects pretending to be
things they weren’t things from modern
civilizations all right so now maybe we
can see a few videos so yeah can we kill
I think I’m very moving over time so
like we won’t watch the second one but
like you can find it online anyway so I
draw one of those sculptures with me
this is like what I make essentially and
say fine things like I said and then it
maybe should I talk word the first one a
little bit like what you saw was
actually it was an animated Idol that I
found again in will under the unwary
flyover
yeah and it’s about yay big I dragged it
to the studio and it’s hollow so now
what happens is like during massage and
these things are kind of like put it is
at the beach or like wherever once
they’ve been prayed to so I kind of
brought this thing into the studio and
it’s kind of like sinking into itself so
it’s hollow so I crawled inside it and
then I animated it like from the inside
it looks like this Idol that’s what I’m
trying to come to life anyway so that’s
what but the video is and I mean you can
make what you want of it everything
which is the other side of anyway so now
with or which is kind of bring our show
and tell to an end this is like a
sculpture I made in two thousand twelve
or thirteen and it’s put together using
pieces of wood PVC pipes polyurethane
foam polyester for plastic plastic
plastic pretending to be this old thing
or some kind of Hammer that might
from you know Star Wars and I played for
you so
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
thank you [Applause]
to talk about a little bit about my
practice how it comes about and and
we’ll also see some films so I’m a
sculptor but that’s kind of a limited
way of describing what I do what I
actually really kind of make is stories
or at least like things that you can
like the viewer and like I mean I see
myself as a viewer as well can make
stories out of right so essentially what
you have like even with the image behind
me are these characters and then there
are these objects and artifacts and that
looks like they might belong to this
alternate civilization or might belong
to some error in the past or 5,000 years
into the future all collapsing into our
timeline and kind of erupting into her
every day so this began like in in art
school like when I graduated I started
doing these performances that were sort
of like these any rituals of movement
throughout well they began at the
bandura skywalk I are in Bombay which is
what you see behind me this is shrouded
kind of costume that I made of this
shaman like being so yeah like you had
this and and all of the sort of fabric
used on the costume was actually stuff
that I found I mean not a very nice
image but like a basically it was like
kind of these swatches that I found in a
in the cotan book and pieces like
polyester fur and I decided to stitch it
together and make this costume out which
is essentially how I work even now like
I work with things that I find and try
to look for what is the possible
and looking for histories within those
objects so this was like the first in a
series of kind of performances where I
dress up and kind of move through like
usually through spaces with commute so
like the Skywalk here and then through
the well this goes into the Tobit allow
subway like no the second performance
yeah so this was in the movie that
allows subway in Bombay and the subway
itself has these like really heavy
acoustics so what I decided to do was
create this didgeridoo which is like a
instrument that’s played by Aborigines
from Australia and there’s a similar
kind of instrument that’s played by but
this month now the one that I made
though was out of PVC pipes and this
branch but anyway and then I was playing
it in this hexagonal subway and what
happened was like because of the
acoustics of the subway if we make a
loud enough sound the entire space kind
of you know reverberates with the noise
of the didgeridoo
and it became a way of like almost
extending that instrument into the space
now now that was the kind of gesture of
the performance but then what happened
was like it like people who were viewing
it sort of started saying oh are there
two of them which is kind of fun like
you know it’s this spectral character
who’s just you know extended through
noise you know now I mean going forward
like you know I kind of decided to make
more characters where I got my friends
to dress up as well and kind of almost
create this um this fictional kind of
anthropology if these these characters
that are sort of you know entering into
our world and then so you have these
kind of you know almost ethnographic
kind of portraits that you take that we
would find in museums or
or what have you you know they come in
they’ll being looked at and this was
being documented and in order to be
understood or like I kind of classified
in a way but they can’t be because they
essentially they’re all kind of like
they put together through this kind of
collage or rather that that ultimately
is this absurd thing now a little more
on collage or what I what was not
collage I mean like so this the kind of
way in which I work is there’s this term
for it called bricolage which kind of
approximates Dugard
you know like where you kind of begin
with a few set of things and then that
just kind of spirals and snowballs into
larger structures so i began creating
these characters and then that kind of
like began to sort of evolve and like
kind of snowball into this larger kind
of evolving narrative meta-narrative of
this civilization and then I started
making yeah that’s I’m also a straw was
nerd so like this is always going to be
like a bit of a wink to that yeah so
like I mean I started making objects
that could have been like you know
animals or like insects or beings that
could belong in that in this
civilization except that everything that
goes into these sculptures is like coat
whatever I could like literally get my
handle and then so there’s a lot of
dumpster diving involved in my practice
like that’s where I get all my guy know
that’s actually the one that I put
together two days back at the pav Bhajji
Lord Museum in Bombay which is we just
finished it’s 150 years since it was
made interestingly the museum itself
began in 1857
it was conceptualized in 1855 and then
following the you know the first mutiny
the first war of independence this
museum was put together as a really kind
of fascinating museum because through
its lifetime it’s it’s I mean the
objects in the museum have have kind of
seen the mutiny they’ve seen and I mean
they’ve helped through these you know
the the mutiny the the Bombay plague the
partition independence and its aftermath
and and these objects has sort of set
out to kind of you know kind of see even
more like I mean as we kind of lived
through these really trying times the
object I mean the structure that I put
together was actually made using objects
from the museum so this is like I know
storage of space okay so interestingly
the museum is it’s the colonial era
museum and it’s made in next to a zoo
and a Botanical Garden so so the way it
was looked at I mean the way it
functioned was like you know you’d see
animals in one place you’d see any
plants of this colony in one space and
in the museum you would see the people
and there it was and it was set up by
the East India Company and then ever
since them you like like the museum was
kind of refurbished it’s kind of taken
on this let’s call it post-colonial kind
of case where it’s we I mean attempting
to reevaluate its own you know it’s kind
of troubled past so it invites artists
to kind of like kind of respond to its
history and things like that so what I
did was I kind of very kind of almost
directly physic
can bring objects that were sort of
thrown away and put into storage in the
museum
now this storage of the museum is in the
zoo right and it’s in this like a
holding your area where they would keep
nocturnal animals so you have like I
mean bits like good and like broken
pieces of artwork that were once shown
in the museum in this case we’re at once
you know new nocturnal animals were kept
anyway so the the bones furred like
whatever that creature is were in this
weird space and then they kind of take
this form right now I’m going to be
showing you work from a kind of again
sort of running series of works that
have been making this began in Kochi in
in Kerala in 2014 when I was invited to
be part of the Kochi Missouri’s biennial
now it’s called the couch EMU series
biennial and missouri’s is this a
ancient port city it’s almost like
India’s first or you know the landmass
that was that is now known as India the
first kind of port to this place and
Pliny the Elder kind of makes a note of
it as well and says that there were
pirates in this area now interestingly
now missouri’s is all but lost and there
are these like kind of seven or eight
alleged sites where it might be existing
and this is kind of strange history
writing project that’s happening in
these in this place where the ESI is
finding objects that were there are old
like you know fragments of terracotta
which is essentially what the first
thing that you would find and any dig
side you find bits of broken pots and
then toys and then you know as you go
further in you’d find even bits of metal
so now what’s happening is like in these
dig sites there’s this kind of you know
narrative building kind of structure
sorry narrative building exercises going
on where people are finding bits and
pieces of like you know carved out
terracotta and somehow like seeing
saying that it built they belong from
the Vedic age Mozilla’s predates the
Vedas as well so I mean I don’t know
what’s going on over there anyway now so
for my project at the Kojima series
biennial I was there for about eight
months and I created about eight hundred
and fifty sculptures some of them really
small tiny that can fit in the palm of
your hand some of them were very larger
and you’d find them in this kind of
disused laboratory space so when you
kind of encounter them you see them as
these specimens that were being studied
or examined from this yeah some of them
were kind of large so they look like
they were being studied and then
abandoned in this laboratory that was
kind of like you know can you just put
left behind so it was kind of like
sixteen little cubicles a lot of clay
and and the objects themselves and it
looked like these robots with these like
twiddling kind of appendages some of
them look like bits of toys or things
you would find in like you know sci-fi
films or Lord of the Rings or whatever
and some of them just look like you know
agricultural tools so you have like a
really kind of like rich civilization
that got left behind and the idea was
like you know I mean if we are kind of
rewriting or like making sense of
history in this place then what what
happens when you kind of put you know
absurd things like an inverted pyramid
in it like anyway so with that like and
anyway so this that project kinda
extended into another exhibition that
I’d like another sort of project that I
did at the liver
in 2016 which is on similar grounds also
interestingly that’s when like so the
work behind me was like installed on the
day on I think June 26th when the brexit
vote happened and this culture behind it
is actually a again a colonial eras
culture that says every man must do his
duty under the crown and it has these
like slaves on it and you could feel the
tension in the air when we were
installing it and so broken things and
repurposed objects pretending to be
things they weren’t things from modern
civilizations all right so now maybe we
can see a few videos so yeah can we kill
I think I’m very moving over time so
like we won’t watch the second one but
like you can find it online anyway so I
draw one of those sculptures with me
this is like what I make essentially and
say fine things like I said and then it
maybe should I talk word the first one a
little bit like what you saw was
actually it was an animated Idol that I
found again in will under the unwary
flyover
yeah and it’s about yay big I dragged it
to the studio and it’s hollow so now
what happens is like during massage and
these things are kind of like put it is
at the beach or like wherever once
they’ve been prayed to so I kind of
brought this thing into the studio and
it’s kind of like sinking into itself so
it’s hollow so I crawled inside it and
then I animated it like from the inside
it looks like this Idol that’s what I’m
trying to come to life anyway so that’s
what but the video is and I mean you can
make what you want of it everything
which is the other side of anyway so now
with or which is kind of bring our show
and tell to an end this is like a
sculpture I made in two thousand twelve
or thirteen and it’s put together using
pieces of wood PVC pipes polyurethane
foam polyester for plastic plastic
plastic pretending to be this old thing
or some kind of Hammer that might
from you know Star Wars and I played for
you so
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
thank you [Applause]
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