tushar joag

Willing Suspension
Paintings and installations
6 - 26 August, 2005

Tushar Joag's art over the past several years has had explicit social-political agendas. He features his current project, UNICELL, in his first solo exhibition. UNICELL is a project created under the assumed identity of a fictional corporate, UNICELL: Public Works Cell (www.unicellpwc.org). It creates works of art that seek to make interventions in urban space, by designing and producing objects that have functional as well as aesthetic value. UNICELL attempts to bring into focus the various concerns relating the contemporary urban situation in a satirical way. It's task is to create solutions to help 'organize one's self' in the 'Do It Yourself' style.

UNICELL tries to find solutions and creates strategies to negotiate the arduous existence within a metropolis such as Bombay. The devices UNICELL proposes are in no way serious solutions to the urban situations. UNICELL is in fact quasi - utopian and carries within it a tautological reference to the problem rather than a solution to it - like telling a lie to cover up a lie. UNICELL is more about mitigation rather than the aggressive effort to bring about a social change - like the packing one puts under a table leg to stop it from rocking and spilling the coffee.
Though the idea of a Utopia remains somewhere in the background of the whole endeavor it remains a malfunctioning effort.

The works in the show include the Commuter Attachment Systems for the suburban local trains of Mumbai. The Foot Swivel, a gadget that allows one to swing out from the door at stations to allow smooth entry or exit of passengers, while the Spidey Handles allow you to travel on the outside of the train.

The paintings are presented as diagrams for the Locomotion Course. "One has to maneuver one self with extreme adroitness in order to be able to embark or disembark at the desired station. The platforms on the stations come on either side and one has to position oneself in the right spot in the gangway to be able to get off at the destination. Four basic choreographies have been designed according to whether the commuter enters or exits the train from the east side or the west side. The Locomotion Course in footwork can make you a skilled commuter on the western line of the suburban local trains in Bombay," writes Joag.