Dia Mehhta Bhupal just had her first solo show in Mumbai

At Pundoles, the image ‘cinema’ first greets the eye. The visual is devoid of human figures; it seems as if the reclined chairs, plush carpet and blank screen with the word ‘Intermission’ flashed across it, carry imprints of people who once inhabited this space. The hall is infused with that familiar energy of shared experiences. A similar energy flows through the second image, ‘Waiting Room 2’—it feels like the space is redolent with stories of those who had once sat in these plastic chairs reading magazines (now neatly arranged on the racks), of people who stared vacantly at the patterned floor and then walked out of the door. These images form part of Watch This Space, the first solo show by Hyderabad-based artist, Dia Mehhta Bhupal, in Mumbai, on at Pundoles and presented by GallerySKE. Specialising in fine art conceptual images, her practice centres around constructing large, life-size sets and then photographing them.

The transitional space

In her work, Bhupal evokes the transitional nature of public places such as cinema halls, waiting rooms, toilets, and more. Soon, one begins to perceive these as patterns instead of as mere spaces. “As an artist, I work with the ‘constructed image’, primarily public spaces, cornering you into a contemplative experience, limiting the viewer to observe, reflect and experience the basic realities,” she says. Although people are figuratively absent in her images, the photos reverberate with their memories, experiences and moments of contemplation.

A part of her process mirrors the transient nature of the spaces that she captures—Bhupal dismantles the sets immediately after photographing them. Only those very close to her have seen a set in its entirety. “I construct sets to photograph them!” she says. “I feel the sets are very different to their photos, both in terms of the experience and how they garner reactions.”

How to read an image?

Her work asks critical questions about how we read images, and form connections with the visual. “In a world saturated with manipulated or mediated images, my work re-evaluates the potential of the photographic medium. The images do not simply depict the world around us, but actively participate in its construction,” she says. When you look at her images—whether it is ‘Mind the Gap’ at GallerySKE, New Delhi, the ‘Bathroom Set’ shown at the Kochi Biennale 2016-17, or ‘Cinema’ from the present exhibition—you get conflicting feelings of familiarity and fantasy. “The viewer may not necessarily think the space is unreal. But I can make you stop and think about your past experiences with the place, or where do you think it is, what is it. Everyone reacts to it differently. And that gives me a lot of satisfaction—knowing that that difference exists,” says Bhupal.

All her sets are created with finely-spun magazine paper, each turned by her hand. “Mehhta Bhupal deconstructs images of aspiration, found in the pages of the magazines she uses, in order to build them up again according to a rudimentary system of colour,” writes Mumbai-based editor, Skye Arundhati Thomas, in an introduction to the exhibition. A close inspection of the image reveals not just layers of meaning, but intricate details as well. “Each colour is found in a trashed magazine, which is cut into strips and twirled individually. Each roll comes with its own text to create myriad stories from different cultures, time periods and genres,” says Bhupal. Some of her sets take years in the making—for instance, for the installation of the bookstore, she created 2,888 books from repurposed paper. “Even though I spend a lot of time thinking about what the image will be like, there is a lot of stuff that happens by accident. As much as I plan, there is still so much that I can’t control,” she says.

Scroll ahead to take a look at some of the images from Dia Mehhta Bhupal’s solo show.

Watch This Space will be on view at Pundoles, Mumbai, between January 16, 2019, and February 13, 2019