Paribartana Mohanty (India) – The Miniaturist, 2015, 12: 44
‘The Miniaturist’ is a double channel video work, presenting readings of the work and the worlds of physicist J Robert Oppenheimer and Behzad, the miniaturist. Physicists work like miniaturists, sees what is invisible to bare eyes. The film is a meditation on blindness, the blinding light ‘of thousand suns’, the first visual descriptions of the atomic bomb test in Los Alamos, and thereafter in Hiroshima. Scientists, politicians, bureaucrats, soldiers and the victims of the disaster describe how that light blinded them for few seconds, and gradually they saw the mesmerizing colours in the blast. Revolving around the court trial of the physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, the film traces his dilemma of witnessing the greatest human catastrophe as a spiritual experience. The work compares the archaeological time with the material remains of the disaster.
Paribartana Mohanty
is based in New Delhi, working in video, performance and painting. He completed his BFA from Dhauli College of Art and Craft, Bhubaneswar and Masters in History of Art from National Museum Institute, New Delhi. He is the recipient of FICA Emerging Artist Award 2010 and ‘City as Studio’ Sarai-CSDS Media Lab Associate Fellowship for Contemporary Art and Media Practices. He had his first solo exhibition ‘Kino is the Name of a Forest’ at Vadehra Art Gallery 2012, New Delhi. In February/March 2015, he was part of Art and Science residency at Khoj International artist Association, New Delhi. In 2014 he has been selected for international creator residency, Tokyo wonder site, Japan. Mohanty has participated in many curated group exhibitions, and residencies. He is also working with WALA (artist collective) that engages in public, community and site-specific art projects and public performance.