In the realm of sleep and insomnia

A new video installation art project going by the title ‘Oneiric House/ round about midnight’ at 24, Jor Bagh, has been unveiled by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA). It is a creation of artist Sonia Khurana and has been curated by Roobina Karode, Director, KNMA. The dilapidated bungalow has been envisaged to be in the realm of sleep, insomnia, somnambulism and music.

For the exhibition, Sonia Khurana has envisioned the dream house to be inhabited by a cast of various characters: a somnambulist mother, an insomniac daughter, two musicians – one an exponent of Hindustani classical music and the other, a Jazz saxophonist. All imagined protagonists are portrayed through photo series, objects, text, video and sound narratives.

Announcing the new exhibition, Kiran Nadar, chairperson, KNMA said, “‘Oneiric House is broadly envisioned as several installations using music, images and text. The house is inhabited by a series of symbols and a seemingly disparate cast of characters: somnolent mother, insomniac daughter, sleep wrestlers, sleepers, slumberers and music-makers reside in metaphoric abodes that stretch across oceans and dry land.” Split on different levels and open to the outside from all sides, the vacant house evokes solitude, silence and music. It is a perfect space to create an artistic installation about the rigours of daily life and living.

Sonia Khurana was born in 1968 in India and is one of a number of Indian artists who received their training abroad and returned to work in their home country. Her works have been presented in Europe, in Asia at the Busan Biennale (2004) and in US during the Global Feminisms exhibition.She comments on her work thus: “Most of my previous projects have been concerned with the poetics of dwelling. I have often proposed the idea of ‘universe as home’ through the figure of maverick, traveller, flaneur, tramp, hobo etc with the help of video installations. 

In my current project, I contemplate the place of dwelling as a space in which disparate elements reside, as if in a dream.” “The exposition endeavours to explore lyrical possibilities of inhabiting spaces, and the symbolic and archetypal meanings embedded in a given space, taking into account both the intrinsic features as well as its ephemerality.”