BOX OF SHEDDING


The last museum I made after MUSEUM BHAVAN was Museum of Shedding. I built it for myself, so that I would be able to live inside it. It comprised of a bed, a desk, two stools, a table, two storage cabinets for prints, a visitors bench and a structure that could display 40 of the 73 images. The structure served as a partition for the curators home, and the other side was for visitors, during museum hours. I also built 11 boxes that could fit 33 images. These 11 boxes served two purposes: they allowed me to display the image on a wall and allowed me to keep 33 images in storage. So if I ever wanted to keep the structure completely empty, I just put all the images in the 11 boxes and the two storage cabinets. These boxes fitted inside the museum structure. While all the furniture fit under the bed. My home in two crates.

Following from Museum of Shedding is Box of Shedding, which is the third publication of
Spontaneous Books, New Delhi.

With Spontaneous Books, I am able to build books and book-objects as and when the Chance to do so arises, as and when material asks to be gathered and as and when the opportunity to disseminate the work presents itself. Box of Shedding, is an unbound book of 30 image cards held together in a wooden structure. It is meant to be hung on a wall or placed as an object on a table. The structure has been built to allow the collector to change the front image as often as they like. The image cards, however, exist as a set of 30 and are not meant to be separated from each other or the box.

Box of Shedding has been published in an edition of 360 and is available only in its exhibition format. It is to be acquired directly off the wall. In this way the exhibition disappears with time and when all the boxes are sold, the edition and exhibition are over.