This sculptural installation is a comparative research of local material culture of the Landlocked habitats and Ocean peripheral habitats. ‘Into The Bones’ the series is part of long-term research on how my indigenous fisherfolk perspective discerns local art materials on the Indian subcontinent. The technique utilized to formulate is a world-famous Dokhra art from India, this is the very ancient Indian indigenous technology to cast metal objects (basic jewellery), production was done at late Dr. Jaidev Baghel (master tribal artisan of Dokhra art) studio (Dhokra Art Center, Kondagaon). Here we find local/ native materials, and de-colonised material identity, the technology was invented in the Bastar district located in Chattisgarh, India.

The district is a part of the Red Corridor, the red corridor also called the red zone, is the region in the eastern, central, and southern parts of India where the Naxalite–Maoist insurgency has the strongest presence. The lands of Bastar and neighbouring districts are rich with minerals, these mining industries are creating huge deforestation and displacements of natives, and these memoirs were a major influence on this piece. Being from the urban indigenous community of Mumbai, I am curious about early native technologies of making things and objects, which make us humans. It is evidence of early human cognitive evolution of matter, form, space, and order. Sculptures have always outlived time, the sculpture is inquiring about slow materials and ancient technology which is a sustainable process to make things better for sustenance.

Using shapes left-over fish bones from my daily life was important to connect the way Koli peoples forest (ocean as forest are being used as an asset to build a city) is ‘Into the bones’ is a similar shivering feeling which I saw in Naxalites of Chhattisgarh state.