The Open Studio / Nandita Basak
Nandita Basak
Selfie
Lean in and the mirror decides who you are
Five plastic arches lie on grey marble: maroon, blue, maroon, green, pink.
Each one holds a small square of pale ceiling light.
A pink doughnut floats where a face should be.
A dog's tongue hangs over nobody.
A turban and a moustache wait for someone to wear them.
Lean in and you are already dressed.
The work
Nandita Basak, of the Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication in Delhi, makes Selfie (2024) from five everyday plastic mirrors. On each glass she pastes a digital printout: a doughnut, a game bird between green pipes, a hat with dark glasses, dog ears and a tongue, a turban with a moustache. They look like the filters people add to photos on their phones. Basak watches how people choose objects to show who they are. Here the viewer's own face fills the gap.
In the artist’s words
“I observe how people engage with items and how they choose objects to represent themselves. I use industrial materials and advertisements from daily-life accessories. My current works remove gender as a category from human representation. This gives me the freedom to explore objectification, fluid identities and the multiple personalities that dominate our presence on social and digital media.”
- Theme
- Identity and digital masks
- Material
- Collage: digital printout pasted on mirror
- Size
- 33 × 175 × 2 cm
- Year
- 2024
- Edition
- multiple copy available
- Framed
- Yes
- About the artist
- Sorojini naidu school of arts and communication
- From
- Delhi
- Code
- RC-4195
