Sheshadev Sagria
The act of warping a body is not just to cover the body, it is an action, action of layering a skin on top of shape or a form, Shape that keeps on changing. Unstitched garment “sari” and “dhoti” are prevalent among the villagers mostly who does manual labour work.These garment should attract various suspicion or question on the utilization of it, since it is unstitched and formless it might be of many use, it can warp a tree, can camouflage architecture or comfort a newly formed shape.
The villager poses the ability to physically transform oneself into any form which makes their manual labor easier, they reshape or invent a new body which changes their environment significantly. Some body prats gets extended and some become something else. Does this unstitched fabric covers the newly shaped body or become the skin of it?
Skin of a shapeshifter
2023
Etching print on fabric, photo performance
In India, women wear the traditional attire known as the Sari, while men wear the Dhoti. Both of these garments are unstitched and formless, capable of conforming to any body or object. I perceive these garments as the skin of a shape-shifter, which molds itself to fit any form it takes. I am documenting the diverse 'skins' of my villagers, transferring them onto unstitched fabric, and exploring various ways of reshaping the body, attempting to recreate the process by which a shape-shifter transforms.
I documented certain skin of my villagers, which I studied and worked through an etching plate in order to make a skin pattern on a unstitched fabric.
Fabric that becomes a skin for any form of body and shape.
We are good at changing our shape of the body in order to adapt and certain functionalities to survive, survival is not keep oneself alive it's about testing the limits of our bodies under a hierarchical surveillance, such surveillance measures each and every movement of our body to create new trap to imprison us by declaring we are free.
