Columns and Facades: Photographs and Architecture with Ayesha Singh

Ayesha Singh’s interdisciplinary practice is primarily structured around architecture, space, cities and the systems of social organisation these evoke. Having grown up in New Delhi, her visual absorption of the city included a plethora of architectural landmarks representing different historical periods and empires of more than a thousand years. Photographic documentation and memory have a role to play in the way these structures translate into Singh’s artistic practice, which ranges from sculpture and drawing to installation and photographs.

In this video interview, the artist speaks about Appropriated and Distorted (2013), one of her earliest interventions of photographs in space, where the physical structure reinhabits and reclaims space in the form of a photograph. With references to architecture from Hauz Khas to Athens as well as readings of post-colonial theories, Singh navigates the conversation from images to sculpture and architecture to provide an insight into the way she transforms space through her artistic interventions. Her work investigates the meaning of columns and facades beyond their functionality to reflect on the historic associations of social hierarchies and political agenda through architecture.

^{(Featured Image: Appropriated and Distorted by Ayesha Singh. 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.)}

Recorded on 20 August 2021.