The Womb of the Covid by Joyotee Ray Chaudhury

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When I was approached some months ago by Singapore artist Joyotee Ray Chaudhury, I had seen some of her early stage works on this theme, but I had no idea how these works would evolve and develop into a project as the Covid 19 situation was still unfolding. I decided I would collaborate with or without the NAC grant as I believed in her vision and creativity. At many levels this theme resonated with me. So here is my curatorial take after several discussions with the artist and reading through several stages of her script that accompanies these works. Even without it, the visual vocabulary pushes forward the multi-layered narrative and the video script provides an existential layer like “stream of consciousness” as the artist rightly puts it. The Womb of the Covid inspired by the COVID 19 virus is an existential docu-narrative in visual, literary and audio-visual formats. The ‘cover’ of this project is a postcard written by the artist ‘observer’ from the earth to another observer in the outer space where the sense of time is unknown and indefinite.  Joyotee Ray Chaudhury has reinvigorated her artistic impulse with diverse techniques and tools from her armoury in expressing her inner states of mind during these difficult times. She juxtaposes them symbolically against massive changes the pandemic has brought in its aftermath the world over...

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Dr Gauri Parimoo Krishnan

Exhibition Curator

Founding Director, DMBG Consultants