An imaginary diagonal connects the video-works of artist-duo Desire Machine Collective (DMC) based in Guwahati in the northeast, to a quadrant where we see the work of New Delhi-based Gigi Scaria, originally from the southwestern coast. Scaria's Elevator from the Subcontinent addresses the negotiation of caste and class in the metropolitan mainstream, while DMC's subtle approach to dealing with conscription to a national cultural fringe by an accident of geography, is seen in their 35mm film, Residue, set in an abandoned thermal plant.


To engineer a pavilion to represent a shape-shifting Indian identity in the world-map that Venice becomes every other summer, is a task fraught with dangers, not least from the national arsenal.



Radhika Desai
Editor, Domus India


