inspired. indian. ideas.
varkala by anfal shamsudeen #
Inspiration is an imagined construct. It stages as a method to locate an idea. Its purpose is to justify why and how something has come about and its contribution to a larger conversation. There is an addition to the product other than the physical object or a manifested entity.
An otherness is the principal appeal on why inspiration as concept is pursued, at times insisted upon and then stated as a whole reason for a body of work to exist. It’s understood inspiration is all around us. We can and should find inspiration in everything we have access to. Well in theory.
Product of inspiration is causative in nature as it’s assumed to play role in adding to a body of knowledge. Question is what is the product and which aspect of knowledge it’s contributing to? For example, a photograph, what is it an image of, has it been produced before, how is the subject captured any different from those around?
India is a complex landscape. It’s a turbulent cauldron, where every municipality limit is an elaborate display of a different culture and people group. In conventional terms its inspiration over-drive. There is too much of everything which is all around. Argument is thus about geography. What does it mean to be inspired in India?
We are down to two core ideas, a context of knowledge and knowledge as derived from a context. Notion to recognise this is to state inspiration as is promoted cannot and shouldn’t try to come from everywhere. If there can be a discipline, a systematic approach that is the perpetual pursuit.
To locate work is personal. It’s an aspirational association. It’s a muse. It’s you keeping yourself in control. Pretty much like giving yourself to a profession is subjecting inspiration to limits. A land is marked and an area defined. Everything in it is yours to play with nothing beyond that.
India is that piece of ground. A field of inspiration to pick and draw out from. It is twenty-nine states and seven union territories. Its twenty-two languages. Its 1.2 billion people. This confluence along with other possible statistical variables produces, claims a site of perceived tangible definition.
With site, then is that which has already been done. Ideas, concepts, proposals, projects and suggestions to create a modality of operation considered as an Indian solution to a problem. What is essential is points of relation with a final solution and the general understanding of a culture.
Just like on land not all sites are built on. When one looks at a map, it displays various patches of habitation. With similar attributes of operation, inspiration for creativity arises in places either not adequately occupied or in hyper concentrations of occupancy. Both outcomes a reaction of contexts.
The discipline of inspiration is an aspired goal — what is it that we have created and how has the created contributed? When a reading from a given guide set such as India staying true to nuances of culture as well as informed contribution with a gestured reverence is dually important.
What I was trying to say was limit your inspirations. Within limits are strengths found. I have limited myself in the culture of a country. You should do that too.