I have been extremely fortunate to have had an aesthetically enriched childhood. My mother, being a responsible parent and an enthusiastic scholar, ensured that I spent my fair share of time in and around museums. As a child, I only really saw the images before me as pretty representations of states of affairs; sexual desire, unions with divinity, commentaries on injustice. It was only in my late teens, after I went to college and sat in on freshman literature classes that I began to understand the existential paradigm that art exists in. As an attempt to preserve memory. In the face of loss, one realises not only that one’s beloved¹ is gone, but also that the way one remembers their beloved, those ‘sacrosanct’ images are prone to distortion, manipulation. Both because when I was making the memory, I only saw what I paid attention to, and now that I remember, I do not know if I remember dishonestly. If I remember this image to make peace with some part of me that I cannot reconcile with, even if the person I am supposedly remembering would encourage me not to reconcile with myself at all.
 
Art has, increasingly, seemed to me a unique attempt to mitigate this problem. We take these memories of ours, and try to save them from the games our mind may and does play on them, to make them outside of us, so that we can no longer exert unknowing control over them.
 
To that end, I was very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to spend some time interacting with the five artists-in-residence at Khoj’s International Residency 2025. Besides the fantastic opportunity to talk to some very cool people, I wanted to see if my theory of art’s existential edge was shared by its practitioners. Especially since the residency was framed as an exploration of social practice and urbanisms, both of which, more tacitly than we give them credit for, shape the way we remember and engage.
 
I spoke to each of them for a duration of time. My investigation began with the hope of producing an answer to two sister questions, namely, ‘how does an artist look at the object of inspiration or aesthetic object? Is their method of perception different from a layperson’s?’ (in other words, does this externalisation of memory necessitate a difference in viewing/remembering that which inspired the work of art, and other objects?) and, ‘how do the intentions artists have towards these objects change as the work of art it has inspired develops?’ (does the memory change, as it unfolds?) However, upon interacting with each of the artists, I came to realise that the answers to both of these questions are not, in themselves, worth focusing on. Instead, I was far more interested in what the artists thought about ‘mistreating’ the objects of inspiration; about whether or not art could be a means to transcend fragile, affectively laden memory.
 
In order to make sense of the notion of ‘mistreating’ an object of inspiration, and thereby the rest of the discussion contained in the essay, a brief philosophical primer is necessary. Namely, I contend, there is confusion as to the boundary between aesthetic object and artist in the first place. Consider that an artist may choose to paint a picture of an apple. Setting it down in the evening, its red skin glistens in the light, beads of condensed water trickle down its side, the skin at its top is very slightly wrinkled and bumpy, the angle of its placement casts a shadow in a particular angle, and so on. The fact is that any object that inspires a work of art has a seemingly endless number of features or properties that can be translated into a work of art, and the artist, knowingly or unknowingly, ‘picks and chooses’² which elements to reproduce.

Therefore, the aesthetic object is not represented in and of itself, but through the lens of the artist. Like memory, art is necessarily perspectival.
 
This (admittedly controversial) account of aesthetic perception/interpretation/translation has some downstream implications. In addition to potentially problematizing conceptions of artistic novelty, it opens the door to the question, ‘are there some features of the object of inspiration that, if missed, cause the work that arises from it to become a misrepresentation, or mistreat/disrespect that object?’ Each of the artists were engaging with this question, even before I explicitly put it to them in these terms. Their responses, as seen in their works of art, provide novel ways of responding to this question. Through the essay, my description of the works of art themselves will be interlaced with how their process and final product shaped my line of inquiry. At the end, I hope to make some kind of statement about art, and the role it plays in preserving our memory.

I hope that in the pursuit of my ambition, I do not end up mistreating the resident artists!
 
***
 
My intentions for this project began to change over the course of my first conversation with Alexander Yegorov. He and I went to the ‘ruined’ building opposite Khoj, in order to hang and photograph his work inside the building. His intent was to use the ruin as a framing device, to contrast the expectation of the work of art and its natural home in a sterile gallery, with the ruin’s dilapidated texture.
 
When asked about the duration of the meaning his endeavor produces, he conceded that the meaning with respect to the ruin as a framing device was temporary.

However, despite the meaning imbued into the ruin as a framing device being temporary in terms of the location itself (temporarily housing the art, framing it etc.), the work it produces, Alex’s executed intent desire to play with the idea of texture, persists in the photograph, and therefore the work of art it produced. As we spoke, hung the works of art and photographed them, he demonstrated to me that the ruin, by virtue of its missing floors, ceilings, and overhangs forced onto him a particular logic of recording. He could not get exactly the kind of photograph he wanted, because the block of concrete he would stand on in order to get it, had ceased to fulfil its function as a floor. He stretched, tiptoed and diligently engaged with the ruin in order to ensure that his work was as close to what he wanted it to be; in concert with the ruin’s expectations and constraints.

If the work of art is an extension of the artist, their will, sentiments and metaphors, the ruin is also tied to Alex in a constitutive way. It shaped his work to the degree it did, in the ways that it did. The act of photographing is not merely a value neutral recording of an entity, but an extension of the artist themselves.
 
This is also exactly the idea that he played with in his work where he photographed everyday objects with an exhibition tag, identifying, naming, photographing, presenting and thereby elevating as art, objects he saw in and around Khiriki. The work’s insistence that these were unique or novel aesthetic objects conceived of by Alex who therefore has sole ownership of them is precisely what made it so effective at engendering an emotional response, namely humor. Because for someone who is aware that even inanimate objects insist on a logic of recording, making them aesthetic co-contributors, the idea that one can unilaterally ‘possess’ or ‘author’ a work of art is hilarious.
 
When reflecting on my conversation with and exposure to Alexander’s process, I kept revisiting the way his craft was constitutively tied to the navigation of his medium. Whatever it was that he sought to express was contingent on what, and how the environment permitted him to express it. He made the choice to involve the building, and thus, it exerted its influence. When I remember something, when I choose to bask in the perfection of a previous moment, how many ways am I affected by a constraint of memory I cannot know? And so, my thought shifted from the mechanics of recording an artist’s intention or inspiration to how much of that intention, inspiration or memory are the artist’s (or mine) at all.

 ***
 
David’s case was slightly different. He identifies himself as a “socially engaged artist”, whose practice is tied to highlighting and exploring socio-political issues as he sees them. His work at Khoj this year was an exploration of the gig economy and abstraction of labour as seen through quick delivery apps, using Blinkit as a case study. He said that the promise of grocery delivery in ten minutes was a foreign concept to him, and that his inability to document a Blinkit dark-store encouraged him to try and come to understand, and unveil the mystery he saw. In so doing, he came to learn about the precarity of the work, its unsustainable nature, and how it presents itself as a means of ensuring one’s freedom, all the while Blinkit projects an image of itself as a ‘family friendly’ corporation. His work attempted to render exactly these features of the lives of us consumers, and the work of the delivery drivers.
 
His work therefore, consisted of a montage of some video interviews taken with the drivers, an installation of a video with “delivery partner assigned” playing on loop, underneath which there was a small body of water with paper boats made from Blinkit packaging, some Maggi that had been ordered for the gallery visitors’ enjoyment, and a delivery jacket/packaging, to highlight the missing body of the delivery driver.

Given the incredibly sensitive nature of his work, and how he too, was using the labour and experiences of an alienated class to produce a body of work, the question of ‘what of this is of David?’/’What has David authored here?’ was specifically pressing. The answer he settled on, was the clarity of his intentions must be underlaid by a desire to articulate and emphasise the usually invisible conditions of these workers, and manifest in a maxim on his part to not judge, or insert himself as an author of their story. He saw his role as an artist in this case to be singularly confined to platforming these people’s voices, not judging or claiming ownership of them. In other words, he intends for his authorial voice to be missing from the content of the narratives themselves, present only as an “index” that organises these stories.
 
His approach appealed to me because of how directly it weighed on the questions engaging with Alexander and his method posed. The question of whether or not the memory is ‘mine’, susceptible to endless external influence, is in itself a kind of distraction. All this question serves to do is insist that one focus on themselves, and not the subject of the art, that which is trying to be remembered and expressed. In order to actually develop a closeness that can begin to mitigate anxieties about the fallibility of one’s own mind, it could be extrapolated from David’s approach, one has to forget it is their mind that is trying to remember. In fact, it seems to be the only respectful thing that one can do in this vein.
  
***

Ada Yu’s and Shovan Gandhi’s work seemed to offer commentary on how best one ought to forget themselves, when trying to develop their ideas, works, and selves. Separated by medium, object and intention, but united through their method, insist that a successful expression of inspiration can only be so after long, dutiful, self effacing attention. The role the self effacement plays in their methodologies, and thus their works is different.
 
Shovan’s work, as far as I understand, attempted to communicate the feeling of concrete. ‘What makes a space pleasurable? Makes it perfect?’ As he articulated his method to me, it seemed as though we, as people, only featured in his ontology as sites of that experience. In order for the intended experience to be effectively communicated by him, the artist, he needs to know the subject in a manner deep enough to know what instigates the experience in us.
 
He told me a great deal about the various ways and questions he’s asked himself in order to come to know concrete, and what it signifies. Questions about why Le Corbusier’s work dots Europe and Chandigarh, how the Japanese view concrete as almost divine, its hardiness presenting itself as a means to ensure that their buildings will not be susceptible to damage from disasters, and how churches are now built with this material in an effort to directly link its durability to the immovability of the Divine. His various methods of shooting subjects, from infrared, to the application of contrast and motion blur, his observation of how the built environment affects the prisoners at Tihar.

All of it contributes to his understanding of the material itself, and thus, what about the material is salient to us, his method a demonstration of the Gita’s insistence of कमा फला त्यगा, or the renunciation of the fruit of action. It is through this knowledge that he is able to render the staggering scale, hardiness and also decay concrete is faced with, as it comes, attempts to weather the elements for long enough. The archive he has made over the course of his career is a record of the ways in which we interact with this material; it is not (just) a collection of his works, but an account of the material that goes into his work. Thus, his answer to the question of how to make sure that the material is not misrepresented is a singular, devoted attention. We see this not only in the way his work elicits exactly the kind of feeling we see when surrounded by concrete, but also through his alchemical experiments with pouring micro-concrete with various kinds of salts, sugars and natural material like roots and clay in order to capture the exact specifications of concrete itself.
 
After engaging with Shovan’s method and work, the idea that one ought to forget themselves and pay attention to their subject is thoroughly vindicated. Shovan’s work is successful at expressing the intention he wishes to communicate because he has paid attention to the material, and to how the material has made him feel. The angles, texture, surrounding environment, each instill a particular feeling in him, and through his attention, he knows not just that he has felt what he has, but also exactly what it is about the material that makes him feel that way. Through enraptured attention to the process, he understands how to make the material move, and to move it to make others feel what he wants his work to make them feel.
Through that attention, his work demonstrates a profound unity between his intent, the work, and the feeling it ought to elicit.
 
***
 
Through her work, Ada wanted to “let the ruin speak for itself”. Her intention of providing something that not only cannot speak, but has also been left to rot in itself, a voice necessitated, in her eyes, a specific method that she called an archaeology of the ruin. This involved integrating three kinds of dissonant narratives; the ruin’s existence as a part of local folklore and its perception as an object by those who saw it each day, the ‘official’ legal narrative as documented by the state, and the physical memory of the ruin itself, borne from the logic of its construction as a shelter, including the events that happened within it, that caused its dilapidation. All in the pursuit of developing a “global knowledge” about the ruin.
 
I asked her if there was anything specific about this particular ruin or building that caused her to devote so much time to bring it life and salience. What was it about the ruin that inspired her to treat it with such attention, care, love? Furthermore, in trying to give this discrete other a voice, how much would the work of art end up being an extension or representation of her?

The answer to the first question was as simple as the fact that there was something almost “metaphysical” in the first moment she saw the ruin, which attracted, compelled her. She said all buildings have the same kind of story, as all are dwellings that will someday return to dust, and that this one was just an available case study. As for how the work was a representation of her, she said that she was represented in the work precisely because she paid such careful attention to it. “I feel like a ruin”/’We are all ruins’, she said. While I will not discuss exactly how she made sense of it in terms of her personal experience, the general thrust of what she was trying to communicate was that, all of us, seemingly endowed with purpose by virtue of our structure and constitution, come to fail that same purpose. Whether it be because of a medical ailment, inability to participate in the institutions that shape our lives, or the location of the hospital where we were born, so many of us beings are resigned to rot in the sands of time like ruins themselves. And due to the nature her gaze of the ruin itself, Ada makes sure not to mistreat the ruin by imposing herself onto it; there is no thought of arranging or rearranging things in order to make it seem more beautiful than it is, because that would cause the ruin to no longer be representing itself. She claims that the incorporation of such selfish intent is always perceptible in the final work of art.
 
Thus, the emotive force of her work, a part of the ruin crashing through Khoj’s wall, a postcard whose image changes depending on the angle through which one sees it, and the crystals on the collected bricks, comes from her attention, and perception of the ruin as an allegory for oneself. The piece of floor bursts through the wall, violently demanding that we give it its due, not ignore the dilapidation literally next door from the clean, ordered environment of Khoj’s gallery space. The crystals on the bricks gesture that even this dilapidated ‘garbage’ is rich with meaning; but we simply do not notice it as it is not immediately salient. The postcard whose image changes depending on the way the light catches one’s eye is indicative of Ada’s task of layering the kinds of perception required to understand the space.
 
Ada’s work and its success highlights another method to achieve this congruence between material, intent and expression, namely through a profound empathy with the object. This is also only possible through her archeological method, coming to know the object. It is when that knowledge has been shared and internalised that the question of mistreatment melts away. I no longer have to be weary if I speak for this correctly, not because of my hubris, but because I know to mistreat you would be to mistreat myself. And in so doing, I would give myself higher status than what I am, ruined. To paraphrase her once again, I know not to be selfish, because others will see the fruit of my selfishness in what I wish to express, and how I express it.
 
***
 
Ayesha’s work was the most different among the five residents, in situating the aesthetic experience of the audience as the prime mover of the work’s narrative. In an effort to create a disruption from the usual studio space and logic of exhibition, Ayesha made a space wherein the various viewers of the Open Studio could write about their own experiences living in Delhi, and look at the reflections of previous visitors. In so doing, she creates a space wherein the artist’s role reduces itself simply to an object of or means to conversation about shared experience.
 
Ayesha’s work offered me the final puzzle piece to the meandering train of thought my experience at the residency comprised. In order to begin to transcend whatever anxieties I do have about whether or not a memory, thought or intention are my own, I know I have to forget myself, pay attention to what I wish to remember, think about or intend, and then thoroughly accept my shared fallibility and ruin with the object itself. But this hardly seems transcendental at all. “After all”, I thought to myself, “how would I ever come to know I was selfish in the first place?” Well, for something to be expressed is to be made external, and for others to bear witness to it. It is only through the eyes of the other, that we can glean our own selfish omissions. Therefore, to conceive of art as actually transcendental, one assumes faith on the part of those who witness it. I escape the traps of my forgetfulness by showing what I remember to other people, so they may see themselves in me, and remind themselves of what I may have forgotten.

***

I would like to thank Pooja Sood and Khoj for being so warm, welcoming and encouraging of my work and its intentions.
 
I want to thank Gulmehar Dhillon for going above and beyond to make sure that not a single issue was felt through the course of my “investigation”.
 
I want to thank Ada Yu, for an incredible conversation I will cherish for a great deal of time, her input and her curiosity about my intentions.
 
I want to thank David Brazier for speaking with me at such length, and the courage on his part to send me his PhD thesis!
 
I want to thank Alexander Yegorov for the incredible, richly informative excursion into the ruin, and the opportunity to be a part of his work, as well as the print of Today’s Garden he so generously gave me.
 
I want to thank Shovan Gandhi for taking the time, and honestly, deeply inspiring me with his singular focus and enthusiasm.
 
I want to thank Ayesha Singh for her time and humor.

¹ This is not necessarily about human loved ones. Even ordinary, non-grief experiences that we’d like to hold onto are susceptible to these problems with memory,

² The word chosen being put in quotations is deliberate. Namely, someone that does not know that they are paying more attention to the way the apple’s skin glistens in the light than the bumps at its top cannot be said to have chosen to focus on the way the skin glistens.