Visions of different worlds

The weather is gusty, yet calm has taken over as everyone sits gazing at one another in silence. This was a part of the experimental protocol that French artist Emma Ponsart proposed at the opening of her recent video and sound installation entitled “Remances – Worlds in Essence” at KCAC in Patan.[break]



Some minutes of silence, with mental and verbal recitation of 108 words and names important to you and turning around 108 times – her collective experiment with the audience closes for the opening of her exhibition.



“The experiment was to get the audience involved and try to make them connect with the sky, the space and people and get a new perspective of different worlds surrounding us,” the artist shares with Republica as we enter the gallery to view her installation.



The loops of videos and sounds recorded during her six months of tour in Nepal plays over on the TV screens and projections placed in the gallery. Her journey was triggered by a photographic archive made in Nepal by her father 20 years ago, and has led her to Nepal in search of immateriality, she says.







“After seeing the photographs, it was like waking up from a dream with the dream imprinted on my mind. So coming to Nepal felt like discovering the familiarity of the place I had experienced through the photographs,” she adds.



The videos and sounds that she captures are the collective of her experiences and experiments. She films as she walks across suspension bridges and broad landscapes, and records prayer flags swaying in the wind, rough terrains, rivers, stones; and even the recorded sounds are of howling winds, hymns and everything immaterial.



Even the TV sets that play her video are placed interestingly – some hang from the ceiling and one is placed in a secluded corner on chairs. Some of the photographs that she calls ‘scores of her experiences’ lie on floor. An interesting display that illustrates her belief in different perceptions is a projection on shards of broken glasses scattered on the floor, which in turn reflects onto the ceiling.



Through all this, she prompts the audience to experiment, to break the mirror and cast aside old perceptions for new perspectives that enable us to see the many worlds –

some within us and some that we create through different visions.



Emma’s installation “Remances” will conclude today.

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