Sensory cues galore at Auroville art exhibition

A thought-provoking show by Auroville-based installation artist Ok Jeong Lee will run till February 11 at Center d’Art, Universal Township. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

A thought-provoking show by Auroville-based installation artist Ok Jeong Lee will run till February 11 at Center d’Art, Universal Township. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

With her new exhibition, Auroville-based installation artist Ok Jeong Lee conducts a walk-through of a twilight zone filled with an abundance of sensory stimuli; Like walking a disorienting, dimly-lit path before a grateful re-embrace of the light.

Lee’s ‘In the Middle and After’ expo is hosted by the Center d’Art in Auroville.

Visitors walk through long strips of cut-up vines made from scraps left over from the manufacturing of Covid masks. As you turn a corner, the visitor sees sculptural objects, silk paintings, metal flowers, hybrid creatures and strange totems embedded in the fabric flora.

The path ends, and one emerges into a bright, vast space. Hundreds of compact discs create sparkling rivers on the ground, an open and fresh sea. The artist has scattered benches and seats throughout the space, all of which are playful and colorful works of art: transparent suitcases for time travelers, woven chairs, and cloud-like foam cushions. The recycled materials talk about important themes, such as memory, the organization of life and the environment, and hope for a more spiritual future.

“As in the fairy tales of your childhood, you move between apprehension and wonder in the dim light of a forest that filters out the light of the outside world,” says Dominique Jacques, who curated the show.

According to the Center d’Art, Lee’s installation is a metaphor for the succession of unprecedented crises facing the world, a state of permanent disruption with no clear end in sight. It explores the ability of humans, as transitional beings, to evolve and face the process of change toward new realities, emphasizing the experience of living a situation from within rather than viewing it from the outside.

In this respect, it echoes the ‘relational aesthetics’ propounded by the French art historian Nicolas Bourriaud, according to whom works of art, beyond their form or style, contribute to the creation of new inter-human relations and a new sensibility.

Lee, an Auroville resident since 2008, started her upcycling project in 2011 after working as a fashion designer in Korea for more than 25 years. She sees upcycling as both an artistic and social practice, honoring discarded materials as carriers of memory and change.

Through workshops and exhibitions in France and India, he has shared the philosophy of upcycling as a way of life.

The expo will run till February 11 (Tuesday to Friday 2 pm to 5.30 pm and Saturday 10 am to 2.30 pm and 2 pm to 5.30 pm).