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DARK NIGHTS
Make the world around you very small.
For some people
these nights
are sad and lonely
For me they become
magical,
even romantic.
Darkness turns
the familiar into unknown,
mysterious and unfathomable.
Anything can happen
on such a night.
You can fall into a ditch
and die;
Or
If you are ready
to face the unknown,
you may use the darkness
to fly to another world.
It depends upon
your own imagination
and your personal power.
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The importance of natural elements becomes more
pronounced when one is growing up in village at a time without automobiles,
computers and even without electricity.
“The darkness of the village night used to be so dense that
one had to almost wade through it. In such still darkness small
fires or light from earthenware lamps became magical. This unique
experience is inconceivable in modern times, when skies are permanently
lit by the light-pollution from towns and cities.
It was the nineteen forties, a time before the goddess of electricity
arrived with a promise to make life a bliss in the Panjab towns.
My first encounter with an artificial light source was a torch,
that one of my uncles brought when he returned from his army service.
But my uncle was very possessive and never allowed me to handle
it. So as a growing child one of my great ambitions was to generate
electricity to light up my home and then the village.
In 1983, when I visited a slate quarry in Mid Wales, for the very
first time, I saw millions of tons of dark black slate pilled up
into small mountains. The sight took me right back to the dark skies
of my childhood in the village.
Shortly after that, a residency with British Gas provided me the
opportunity of using fire as a material in my work, first in conjunction
with sand and then with stone. That was followed by using candles
set in chunks of dark slate, or floated on water and in other creative
situations.
My two recent installations
using slate and candles and the silence in a roofless Buildwas Abbey
in Shropshire created the magic very close to my experience in the
village.
To expand the scope of sharing my other experiences I also work
on other large-scale sculptures in public spaces, some provide a
momentary experience and others become part of the landscape.
But the work in fire, water and slate remained a creative frame
of reference to which I return over and over, to renew my creative
energies and carry forward the magic.
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