“Indian artists reach for the stars with telescopes, domestic objects and lost constellations, Indian contemporary art takes a shot at cosmic phenomena and astronomy.
After chasing eclipses across the country, artist Rohini Devasher travelled to some of the most hallowed sites of Indian astronomy in 2010. Her first stop was the Indian Astronomical Observatory, the second highest optical telescope in the world at 14,500ft above sea level in Hanle, Ladakh. Her field investigations resulted in Parts Unknown: Making The Familiar Strange, a suite of seven videos plotted against a drawing of the quadrant of space that is home to the Pleiades open star cluster. The videos were windows to a hybridized terrain—they seemed to be of Hanle, but had an extraterrestrial appeal to them, merging the familiar with the strange.
First shown in 2012 at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Devasher revisited Parts Unknown in 2016 at the Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas, US. The Delhi-based artist is known for the extensive use of astronomy in her practice, having visited the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope near Pune, Maharashtra, and the Scottish Dark Sky Observatory in Ayrshire, Scotland. “All these trips were extraordinary. These sites, hidden away from civilization, are almost symbolic of the individuals that populate them. Astronomers escape the city as often as possible to find the stars, unspoiled and untouched. Astronomy offers that form of escape, far from people and places,” says Devasher.
