Event 3: Making Strange: Gagawaka + Postmortem by Vivan Sundaram

Making Strange at the Fowler Museum showcased two beautiful works by Delhi-based contemporary artist Vivan Sundaram, Gagawaka and Postmortem. I have gone to the Fowler Museum quite a few times as an undergraduate, and have been pleasantly surprised each of my visits. I didn't know what to expect of this exhibit, and was definitely again highly satisfied with my visit.

Gagawaka is a series of 27 sculptural garments by Sundaram that utilize recycled and / or medical supplies to create a commentary on both high-fashion and haute couture. Here are a few of my favorite pieces from the Gagawaka collection.

This first piece is quite interesting as Sundaram is using bra padding, something typically hidden from view, and places them on the outside of a garment as a revealed object. This subversion of a materials placement is quite a common yet still powerful technique among his works.

This second piece is actually quite disgusting for me, as I get repulsed by the sight of hair in a bathtub drain. Something about this piece having that affect on me, and probably others, too is very interesting to me.

The last few works all used common medical supplies such as face masks, hair nets and medicinal silver foil pill containers as the material for the works. These works bring to mind the medtech chapters we discussed during the quarter. When I looked closely at the hairnet piece, I could see that some of them were soiled and had hair stuck to them. The fact that many of them were used and recycled added to the potency of the effect.

The last two works used bandages and gauze and other protective material in a new way, creating works that resemble Trojan armor, creating another sense of protective covering out of an already protective material. 

 These last set of sculptural works are from his Postmortem collection which juxtapose old medical education props with various found materials to create these very intriguing small works. A lot of the subject matter here felt much darker than Gagawaka works, and it was aptly named Postmortem. The themes dealt with here were often with mortality and death in quite direct manner.

Overall I really enjoyed this exhibit. I have been dealing with a lot of death, illness and distrust in the medical industry lately, so a lot of the works here kind of resonated with certain feelings I have been encountering in my own life. I have never seen Vivan Sundaram's work before, but I hope to encounter more of it in the near future. He is truly a talented artist working in the realms of Science and Technology, particularly in the medical field that heavily utilizes both.