Oppression and resistance lie in the same body. They are not separate entities. The body that suffers the state/ corporate/ brahminical/ white-supremacist/ imperialist/ islamophobic/ patriarchal repression, also resists and continues to struggle. Therefore, the challenge for an image-maker is to capture that particular moment/ pause/ transcending point where resistance and oppression meet, and being apart or together, it creates the possibility of dissensus.
Working as a propagandist taking notes, making layouts, jotting down, I realise that incomplete observations/ thoughts are important, but it is an invisible process. A poster, a banner, or a leaflet is used as a statement but the layers underneath are always invisible and are more personal in nature. Therefore, a diary is a place where one can express one’s failures, incompleteness, vagueness, inarticulateness and throughout the time-lapse all of these internal conflicts unknowingly creating ‘excess’. Excess can be understood as an amalgamation of multiple contradictions and it proposes different traces of history and I believe today a propagandist’s task is to compile an inventory of the traces that history has left in us.
In this set of drawings in response to Hakara’s 10th edition call called “Friction”, I have put together everyday empirical documentation through taking visual and written notes in my journal, that incorporates the experiences gathered from the socio-political resonances of my quotidian journeys, as well as social media information and interactions. And, these notes help me to precisely make digital/ handmade posters, festoons, banners, signages, and graffiti for different socio-political movements. In a way it helps me articulate and give form to my visual propaganda which is the core modality of my artistic practice.
