‘Being’

Every landscape has a story to tell; a story embedded in its soil, absorbed into its every rock and filtered within its atmosphere. There are a myriad ways to reinterpret and retell a landscape’s tale, relying on the multiple layers of human occupation, and rather more difficult to tell it as it is. It takes intuition to see it in the exact- ness of its being, and honed artistry to translate it into a tangible experience for an audience. Shibu, with his series ‘Finding Nowhere’ does that and much more; he presents the natural and material landscape of Magadi at its real best, allowing each viewer the freedom to navigate the work in the context they are prepared to.

The spaces are serene, unadulterated by human presence, and carry little imprint of the artist’s presence. It is as if he has blended into the environment; the only evi- dence of his intervention the physicality of the images themselves. Yet, it is his unerring eye that leads us to the contoured frames, the eloquent scenery. There seems timelessness in the imagery; soft grey tones play with deep shadows and bright whites, resembling a lovingly etched monochrome aquatint. By divesting the landscape of its colours, the artist is leaving behind the final crutch of image-making. By allowing bluntness to shroud each object, he is deliberately challenging the accustomed precision of digital photography. His method stems from a combination of deep respect for historically relevant forms of photography, a passionate interest in experimenting with a variety of lensed ‘tools’ and an innate urge to experiment and reinvent his pictorial language.

The gentle, lyrical views stir the memory, and enchant the senses. And from the quietness of it’s being, the landscape breathes a narrative for tomorrow.

Lina Vincent Sunish
Art Historian . Curator
Bangalore . India . 2012

These photographs by Shibu Arakkal of Magadi village catch the majestic contours of desolation, almost making silence visible. The perfect stillness which he has captured in the rocks, temple ponds, and deliquescent walls, all haunted by their desolation, in turn transform the viewer into elements of the photographed moment, breathless in anticipation of the next shift in the light.

Girish Karnad
Writer . Playwright . Screenwriter . Actor . Director
Bangalore . India . 2012

In life as we know it today, the word ‘yearning’ seems to be caught in two worlds. I think that the latter would do well to be paired with the word ‘purpose’ for any real meaning though. Furthermore our need to simplify our lives directly contradicts our want for things that complicate it.

Lost in a world of contradictions, we should have always known what we truly yearn for and in that, certainly what kind of a living place we want surrounding us.

As such it is the physical landscape of the world around us that usually bears the signs of change. But in all that, there are little settlements that get hidden in all the clutter and seek to be found. And in finding that nature of human habitation one can often find something more meaningful about life and the real meaning of wishing for a better life. Thinking if somehow we could do it all over again.

Magadi to me is such a place, one of retrospection, of things very real and of recluse. And if solace of a fading world does find you along the way, then I suppose it is somehow apposite.

My constant journeys over the last few years to this little town has re instilled in me a clarity and faith in life, simply put. Although not as small, I was still born in a town of such simplicity, in the way of life but more essentially in what we wanted out of it. A town then called Bangalore. Born from that and to be responsible for rais- ing children of tomorrow in a world that seems to have spun around, I suppose everyone must find their bearings. That and what we must really yearn for.

Shibu Arakkal
Bangalore . India . 2012