What started as a personal outpouring has slowly evolved
into a more metaphorical dialogue on man’s pursuit of the flesh – in terms of
the materialistic and the physical. But the essence of Gopika Chowfla’s
installation by the same name at the ongoing Sensorium festival is right in
line with the explorative work she has been pursuing alongside her graphic
design practice. It’s a pursuit that has evolved from her professional
background itself. As a graphic designer in advertising which she began in
1997, her constant challenge was to bridge the gap between the buyer and the
purchaser and as a visual communications professional she learnt to engage the
viewer. This in turn led her to explore several mediums – transitioning between
graphics, sound and voice, spatial design and the digital world. Putting
together her creative energies right from ideation to designing, she has been
creating engaging works in mix media with a socio-cultural message.
“For the last 15 years I have been working as a graphic
designer at my Delhi Studio, but I was always keen on doing something more
exploratory that was out of the realm of the commercial,” explains Gopika who
has shifted home to Goa but continues to work through her Delhi office. Over
the years, Gopika has been experimenting with installations using different
material, like the well received stainless steel three-piece kinetic sculpture
at Ashtanayika. “A lot of my work is conceptual. It evolves more from the idea of
interacting with the viewer. Their response is important. So a lot of my work
uses technique or technology to engage the viewers. Most of my work is sensory.
It awakens the humour or wit to feel things,” avers Gopika, who has helped put
together the graphic design for the entire festival.
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A site specific installation, ‘Flesh’ has been a work in
progress. “I have titled the installation ‘Flesh’ to allude to the material
aspect of our being. I want people to experience the whole concept as they walk
in,” explains Gopika. “It’s immersive and it flows from a personal story but
then moves to a different aspect. The whole space is the art. It is a nice
scale to exhibit and to explore the senses,” she adds. Leaving the viewer to
draw their own reactions and responses, she demands one nevertheless. “It is
very private. You have a private engagement with what’s in the room. Each one’s
reactions will be different.” But the message of the ‘corporeal’ and man’s
obsession with it on the physical and material level is abundantly clear as one
steps into the soft subdued womb alluded to as ‘Flesh’.
