Untitled: [Re]-Social fabric: HerStory, HiStory, OurStories…

Bernard Akoi Jackson’s first point of entry is cloth/dress/adornment. “Cloth” is a complex entity. Fabrics, textiles and items of clothing always bear histories. Of origins, identities, traces of use, signs of wear-and-tear; bodily secretions and many more. Even before they are used, textiles, by the fact of their manufacture are very loaded with histories, markings; both for embellishment and identification. After cloths and clothes have outlived their use, they are discarded, donated or repurposed. Jackson is also interested in “cloth” because of certain historical acts, like the famous presentation of a hand-woven lace cloth to the Queen of England by Mahatma Gandhi and the long tradition of narrow loom Kente weaving in Ghana. The project borrows from the aesthetics of weaving, quilting, appliqué and tapestry making traditions to create individual and communal visual narratives. He has collected cloth and other items of clothing from many people, including co-participants of the residency. He also bought some cloth. Using various forming techniques (i.e.: stitching by hand, with sewing machines, gluing etc), Jackson has created a large ‘tapestry’ that embodies collective stories and imagined aspirations of the communities involved. This tapestry may be presented as a performable cloth, or as a hanging installation.

Untitled: …a waning moon’s walking through glitter into festering dusks and dawning futures…

True to the artists’ nebulous practice, all his projects remain works in progress and in flux, melding into each other, existing on their own or exiting the larger matrix and becoming new situations altogether.

The size, dimensions and scale is constantly variable and certain site-specific details are always introduced or omitted, to engage the varying contexts aptly. In these particular ‘walkings,’ Jackson has created fictive characters that momentarily occupy certain spaces. Here, the specific spaces are the Select City Mall, Khirki Village and INA Market. These fictive characters walk slowly within the designated spaces.

After the performances, a video documentation will be presented as a part of the installation. Three specially staged photographs of these characters, taken within the three different spatial contexts are presented.

Untitled: …slightly un-aligned, a little non-aligned, with a billowing line above…

In this work, Jackson is producing some “flimsy flags” (30) which will be juxtaposed by the projection of a stop-motion animation of the Indian flag in flight. The image presents a beautiful ambiguity. The flag becomes a dancing sculpture in space, billowing and singular in performance, whilst the other flags form an embodied chorus of diversity.