Ballygunge Phari [HD video]

Holmes, Paul

Abstract

HD Video, black and white, silent.

Named after one of South Kolkata's busiest intersections, this work captures the roaming inhabitants of the city, and its relentless streams of traffic, and creates a shadowplay.

The men and women of Kolkata, and its taxis, buses and auto-rickshaws, are little more than fleeting shapes, projected in silhouette for a moment, before melting away like ghosts into the darkness.

No sooner are they gone than more appear to take their place. Innumerable, anonymous imprints of the teeming metropolis, constantly on the move, repeatedly fading away and flickering back to life, condemned to haunt this decorative screen for a few seconds and in perpetuity.

Duration: 4 minutes 53 seconds.

Ballygunge Phari showed at the Kolkata Art Festival, Gem Cinema in February 2017; and at "Life and Times: A Changing Landscape" at the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata in March 2017.

Citation

Holmes, P. (2017). Ballygunge Phari [HD video]. [Gallery exhibition]

• Digital Artefact Type: Video
• Publication Date: Feb 4, 2017
• Deposit Date: Aug 28, 2018
• Keywords: Kolkata, Calcutta, video art, artists' moving image, shadowplay
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1286695