<p>Bengaluru-based Pushpamala N, India's pioneering performance artist, returns to her training as a sculptor (at MS University, Baroda) with her new show, Epigraphica Indica. The show opened at Bengaluru's Gallery Sumukha on March 12 and runs through April 16. </p>.<p>It comprises two distinct sets of works based on the common thread of scripts: Atlas of Rare and Lost Alphabets (2015-2018) and Nara (2020-2022). </p>.<p>"While visiting the archaeological museum in Bangalore, I saw a vitrine (glass display case) with beautiful objects, copper plate inscriptions from the 15th and 16th centuries called tamrashasanas, mainly records of land grants. I decided to recreate the forms in my studio," said Pushpamala speaking to <em>DH</em>. </p>.<p>"As I started researching them, my earlier idea to create a work about land issues turned into a fascination with the forms of the many ancient scripts recording our history that I found. That is how this work with the alphabets started. The archive concept was married to the daily performative activity of tediously copying the alphabets like the ancient scribes," said the artist. </p>.<p>Often called an iconoclast, Pushpamala has turned epigraphy—the study of inscriptions—on its head by mixing up the order of the original alphabets that makes them mysterious and unreadable, like coded texts or "hidden transcripts," an anthropological term invented by James C. Scott, referring to secret languages of resistance and cultural preservation.</p>.<p>These patinated copper etchings bring together ancient alphabets with drawings from medieval European botanical manuscripts, Goya's etchings, diagrams, birds and beasts playfully inserted into them. </p>.<p>The Nara series, comprising 50 works commemorating the slogans and poems of recent popular protests in India, was born as an extension of this interest in inscriptions and records. </p>.<p>"Once I start working with a medium or an idea, I start elaborating on it in different ways. A lot was happening in India while I was working on the copper plates, which led to Nara (slogans), which are incised on copper sheets and framed like school slates. I have used the forms of the blackboard and the school slate earlier in several works as pedagogical devices," said the artist. </p>.<p>"The idea of the tamrashasana has been extended to record contemporary history and present a lesson. I have designed each slogan and poem using different lettering styles in the three scripts: Kannada, Hindi, and English. Their narrative is very upfront, poster-like, unlike the hidden meaning of the Atlas works."</p>.<p>The works in the Nara series are succinct. A pithy example is "hashtag (#) Pinjratod (Break the cage!)," inscribed on a slate. Another is a quote by the late Dalit PhD scholar of the University of Hyderabad, Rohith Vemula, who committed suicide in January 2016 in protest against the discrimination of Dalit students in Indian universities. </p>.<p>"Each protest is different. In my work, they come together as a mosaic of the times," says the artist. </p>.<p>The material Pushpamala has gathered while creating her Atlas and Nara works is massive, and the Nara works could go on indefinitely, but she decided to stop after doing fifty of them as it was "very tiring." </p>.<p>She has an upcoming solo exhibition featuring her Mother India series of photographic and video works at the Heidelberg Museum in Germany in May, and another solo at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, in November.</p>.<p><em>(The writer is a New Delhi-based journalist, editor and arts consultant.)</em></p>.<p><strong>Check out the latest videos from <i data-stringify-type="italic">DH</i>:</strong></p>
<p>Bengaluru-based Pushpamala N, India's pioneering performance artist, returns to her training as a sculptor (at MS University, Baroda) with her new show, Epigraphica Indica. The show opened at Bengaluru's Gallery Sumukha on March 12 and runs through April 16. </p>.<p>It comprises two distinct sets of works based on the common thread of scripts: Atlas of Rare and Lost Alphabets (2015-2018) and Nara (2020-2022). </p>.<p>"While visiting the archaeological museum in Bangalore, I saw a vitrine (glass display case) with beautiful objects, copper plate inscriptions from the 15th and 16th centuries called tamrashasanas, mainly records of land grants. I decided to recreate the forms in my studio," said Pushpamala speaking to <em>DH</em>. </p>.<p>"As I started researching them, my earlier idea to create a work about land issues turned into a fascination with the forms of the many ancient scripts recording our history that I found. That is how this work with the alphabets started. The archive concept was married to the daily performative activity of tediously copying the alphabets like the ancient scribes," said the artist. </p>.<p>Often called an iconoclast, Pushpamala has turned epigraphy—the study of inscriptions—on its head by mixing up the order of the original alphabets that makes them mysterious and unreadable, like coded texts or "hidden transcripts," an anthropological term invented by James C. Scott, referring to secret languages of resistance and cultural preservation.</p>.<p>These patinated copper etchings bring together ancient alphabets with drawings from medieval European botanical manuscripts, Goya's etchings, diagrams, birds and beasts playfully inserted into them. </p>.<p>The Nara series, comprising 50 works commemorating the slogans and poems of recent popular protests in India, was born as an extension of this interest in inscriptions and records. </p>.<p>"Once I start working with a medium or an idea, I start elaborating on it in different ways. A lot was happening in India while I was working on the copper plates, which led to Nara (slogans), which are incised on copper sheets and framed like school slates. I have used the forms of the blackboard and the school slate earlier in several works as pedagogical devices," said the artist. </p>.<p>"The idea of the tamrashasana has been extended to record contemporary history and present a lesson. I have designed each slogan and poem using different lettering styles in the three scripts: Kannada, Hindi, and English. Their narrative is very upfront, poster-like, unlike the hidden meaning of the Atlas works."</p>.<p>The works in the Nara series are succinct. A pithy example is "hashtag (#) Pinjratod (Break the cage!)," inscribed on a slate. Another is a quote by the late Dalit PhD scholar of the University of Hyderabad, Rohith Vemula, who committed suicide in January 2016 in protest against the discrimination of Dalit students in Indian universities. </p>.<p>"Each protest is different. In my work, they come together as a mosaic of the times," says the artist. </p>.<p>The material Pushpamala has gathered while creating her Atlas and Nara works is massive, and the Nara works could go on indefinitely, but she decided to stop after doing fifty of them as it was "very tiring." </p>.<p>She has an upcoming solo exhibition featuring her Mother India series of photographic and video works at the Heidelberg Museum in Germany in May, and another solo at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, in November.</p>.<p><em>(The writer is a New Delhi-based journalist, editor and arts consultant.)</em></p>.<p><strong>Check out the latest videos from <i data-stringify-type="italic">DH</i>:</strong></p>