Woh bhi line ka tha (He was one of us)
inkjet prints on archival paper
2018-22

‘Woh bhi line ka tha’ translated as ‘he was one of us’ is a term commonly used in cruising spaces in northern India. Public sites where men engage in sexual encounters with other men become the backdrop of this work. ‘Line’ here stands in for vocation, a choice of activities or even orientation. Images taken from these spaces are fictionalised and used as atmosphere for objects foraged from these sites. The images help create an afterlife for these objects. Disconnected from spaces they were found in, they take on new fictional meanings filled with possibilities incomplete in the present they originate from. The objects work as anti-evidence of places and times they came from. In their new form, as fictionalized versions of their original selves, they work like ephemera, trace, remains, things that are left behind, hanging in the air like a rumor. Inspired by the idea of the still-life, the images aim to redeem these seemingly trivial objects and give them new life filled with possibilities for a new, imagined world. This ephemeral arrangement of objects and memories from spaces like parks, public toilets and gardens map out a mise-en-scene of what could have been. They also work as potential blueprints of a world not quite here, a horizon of possibility, not a fixed schema.