Artist Statement
DISPLACED
‘Jeev’ (meaning ‘Living Creature / Animal’ in Hindi) has always shifted from place to place since birth, unsure as to when things will be on the move again. When resettling, he gets the frequent ‘where are you from?’ to which there is always a little pause in the response. With no concrete answer to it, he recalls how there is no feeling of connection or belonging to any single place and yet he is a culmination of every place he has been to, which shapes him the way he looks. With many connections and bonds hard to hold on to, Jeev gets a wave of emotions remembering when he had to go away from his close friend during early school and almost never seeing him again. Moving to another place meant being dropped in a sea of fresh faces while having adjusted to the previous surroundings. Standing out with the way he looks and observing the shift in culture, he tries to adapt and makes a place for himself once more. Newer neighbors, and being the new kid in the school, it is all familiar and yet is the same anxious and stress filled days to get by. Within a blink of time, circumstances shape the road to a different direction, to a different land and it is time to stare again at those dreadful annoying moving boxes for him . Some of his favorite things disappear, some unnecessarily hoarded things get dropped, the crave to buy more things diminishes. Flapping his wings open, Jeev soars wherever the wind blows and looks forward for events to unfold.