The Hybrid Drawings often reference multiple spaces and layers of history through the architecture of a city, this work though looks at multiple histories of one particular space in Delhi- Agrasen’s baoli.

A ‘baoli’ or ‘vav’(as in the earlier work this year) refers to stepwells- architecture created specifically for public access to harvested water, mostly found in western-India. Here standing before the azure Pacific Ocean, the sculpture references a 14th century building whose history has moved, flattened and expanded, containing myth and horror, over time, depending on the narrator.

Although according to the Archeological Survey of India(ASI) there are no known historical records to prove who built Agrasen ki Baoli, according to local myth, it was built by King Agrasen (founder of the Aggarwal community.) Some say it was built or has been rebuilt during the Tughlaq or Lodi period of the Delhi Sultanate, explaining its persian-inspired arches. This work brings its reference to water and layered narratives into a Hybrid Drawing that opens and collapses, layers and separates itself from itself, and throws shadows intersecting its own storylines, as you walk around it and visit it at different hours of the day.

Material Support: Carpral, Perth, Australia

Image credits: Sculputre by the Sea, Bondi, Australia