The Solid Melts Into Sauce

This video examines the metamorphosing cityscape of Vadodara, India by focusing on a traffic junction with the iconic sculpture of a banyan tree by Nagji Patel. This sculpture, which is an integral part of the city’s identity, is on the verge of being displaced due to the construction of an overbridge. The video, based on John Smith’s The Girl Chewing Gum (1976), treats the sculpture as a negative space (or an elephant in the room) and highlights the uncertainty of its fate by contrasting it with a Futurist recipe. It employs humor and absurdity to question ‘truth’, ‘authenticity’, ‘reality’ vs. what is presented or portrayed. By exposing the construct inherent in the video, the viewer is made to acknowledge, challenge and then move beyond the ‘controlled’ in order to discover new meanings within the everyday.