Affordable Art Fair 2022 Sunaina Installation
Y Art Projects represents Artist Sunaina Bhalla in Affordable Art Fair 2022 (Booth 2A-3)
Sunaina Bhalla Installation "Synapse"
Size: 244cm x 244cm
Material: ropes, fabric, pins, wooden board
Year: 2018
Concept
This installation represents a comprehensive interpretation of the theme of this body of work, which focusses on the way the body recognizes sensory stimuli like pain and relief. The synapse is essentially a small gap separating neurons which allows information to flow across these neurons in the form of electrical or chemical impulses. All of the motor and sensory information through which we are able to see, to hear, to smell, to taste, and to touch, the cognitive information through which we are able to reason, to think, to dream, to plan, to remember, and to do everything else that we do with our mind relies on the synapse.
In this installation you will walk through and visualize the process of this sensorial experience and how it is processed by the brain. Going in is the recognition of the stimulus, walking through is the processing and deciding upon the action, and exiting the installation is the body’s response to that stimulus – for instance, if you touch something sharp(entry), the brain processes this sensations across the Synapse (walkthrough), and you remove your hand from the sharp surface (exit).
The installation consists of cotton ropes that are covered with either white satin fabric or gauze bandages.
In some of the stain ropes, I have embedded pins , signifying physical pain.
This installation is shaped like 2 neurons that meet in the middle where the gap ‘synapse’ forms. There are two entrances ,one with the pins and one with the bandages.
The idea behind it to highlight the concept that pain and relief go hand in hand-one precedes the other in a never ending cycle.
Sunaina Bhalla Installation "Sharps"
Size: 244cm x 215cm x 30cm
Material: Wooden board, cotton ropes, satin fabric and brass dressmaker's pins
Year: 2020
Concept
An installation of snow-white fabric ropes are pierced through with thousands of dressmaker’s pins, the latter serving as a stand-in for the hypodermic needle. The act of perforating the body of the ropes, in a gesture of savagery reiterated over and again, is a symbolic recreation of a ritual central to the artist’s life: the use of insulin injections on her daughter, who suffers from juvenile diabetes, as well as the constant subjection of her own body to the ministrations of the needle and syringe during her struggle with cancer. The artist remarks that “the repetitive act of poking is a daily reminder of the fragility of human beings and the damage the body suffers in order to cure certain severe diseases and conditions”.
Sunaina Bhalla Installation "Synapse II"
Size: 244cm x 244cm x 210cm
Material: Wood, ropes, fabric, gauze bandage, sports bandage and safety pins
Year: 2022
Concept
Synapse II is a further exploration from Sunaina's previous installation, ’Sharps’, which explored medical treatment for healing chronic illness and pain, using pins that were representative of trauma. In this work, Sunaina has systematically removed the thousands of sharp pins which pierced the ropes, and ‘covered’ the residual ‘marks’ on the fabric with bandages alluding to the process of healing after the body has been pricked and probed.From the extreme trauma of the piercings, we now arrive at a space for recovery, repair and regeneration which is a signifier of hope and resilience. The bodily trauma is healing and consequently the synapse, the space between two neurons in the brain cross where the impulse passes from one neuron to the other, is relaying impulses of positivity and repair.
