Art Basel Hong Kong: Buliding Artefacts | Vishwa Shroff

“Building Artefacts” is a project by Vishwa Shroff that brings together three recent bodies of work – ‘Interim Party Walls’, ‘Transitions’ and ‘Guards at the Taj’. These meticulously created paper works build on ideas first explored in Shroff’s 2016 solo exhibition “Drawn Space” at TARQ while also reflecting the evolving real-life contexts for the artist. These drawings explore the narrative potential of spaces and objects otherwise considered banal – inconspicuous corners, walls and floors. The ‘Interim Party Walls’ (short for partisan walls) is a series consisting of several small works that were inspired by the artist’s travels over the last year. The images are reflective of her previous, Tokyo series, but take their cues from entirely new spaces. These works form a cornerstone of sorts for the project, given that Shroff has explored the transient spaces between buildings (real and under construction), starting in 2015 in London. The ‘Party Walls’ are emblematic of her engagement with her surroundings, and form a core of her practice at large. The ‘Transitions’ series is a set of small wall mounted works, and one long work displayed on a table, that looks at the trajectories of change at a variety of public buildings in London, through the stories told by the changes in the flooring. Each delicate ‘Transition’ is created through detailed observation of the flooring of a space and documents the intricate shifts institutions deal with over time. The ‘Guards at the Taj’ series started as a set-design project for a play of the same title that was staged in Mumbai in 2017. These works draw upon the iconic design and architectural motifs of the Taj Mahal to create a narrative of the relationship between this monument and the people connected to it. This series also marks an aesthetic evolution for Shroff as she moved from her definitive stark, Japanese-inspired aesthetic to a more animated and whimsical style.