Akkad Bakkad: A Virtual Exhibition

 

The best way to describe this exhibition is the adage ‘Jaisi drishti, waisi srishti’. Akkad Bakkad is our reflection on dissecting the gaze on what we call India. How we see ourselves, how the west sees us, how we see how the west sees us. This all day programme premiered on Republic Day 2020 and used the publicly available internet archive to take you through various films from different points of time and attempt to re-contextualise, juxtapose and bring to the surface new reflections on visuals already produced and consumed.

The films were not only juxtaposed with other films, but also gifs, memes, sounds, images, almost playing like a DJ set, but in visuals. Can we call it a VJ set then? Maybe. The curator here was be invisible, bringing in new reflections and drawing focus to specific moments. The exhibition was made specifically for the internet medium and hence performed on the medium.

As we move towards being bombarded with more and more visuals on a daily basis, there is perhaps an even greater need to reflect on visual language, minutely. When the gaze is set on the idea of a nation, and that too on the day of the birth of the republic; and how that gaze brings forth a sliver of truth on one’s place in the world, it becomes important to the contemporary. Jaisi drishti, waisi srishti.

Curated by Harkat Studios

Karan Talwar
Aditi Kashyap
Sheba Alexander
Simran Ankolkar
Michaela Talwar
Tanya Dixit
Tanvi Chitre

The exhibition was live on our online platform: live.harkat.in