Madhurjya Dey
Five Million Incidents

About the Actant

Madhurjya Dey graduated from the department of Painting, Faculty of Finearts, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and is currently pursuing his post-graduation from the same faculty. Starting with the simplest correlations between cinematic strategies applied to sculptural forms, to broader parallels being drawn between imagined realities, the distortion of individual and collective memory, and narratives (that exist in his work as neither fiction nor reality), Madhurjya constantly attempts to create loops in both time and space, forcing the viewer to string together the happenings he narrates. He has participated in Project Ecowalk at Sara Centre, Karnataka, India, 2017. He has been a part of four group shows starting with Transformation of Ideas (2016), Degree Show (2018), a preview show called ‘In Making’ 2018 and ‘Terra-Incognitta’, an online show (2019). He is recipient of the Jeram Patel Award (2018).

The project is an attempt to recreate a specific time frame (1988-89) through a fictional narrative involving two protagonists, brothers. The elder was banished in the year 1988, left the family behind and moved to Nagaland. The narrative places emphasis on the relationship between the brothers and their insecurities regarding the place where they grew up. The narrative attempts to highlight a few radical incidents that took place between 1988 and 1989. The brothers exchanged letters and a few telephone calls. To comprehend the complexities that evolved with time, the focus is on such conversations. Designed to manifest the protagonist’s abode, the space of the incident begins with a prologue accompanied by a telephone call that the audience can listen to; fragments of the telephonic conversation will be detailed in a set of painted encounters. These paintings plot a range of emotions, the tempo of the conversation, words and silences whilst illustrating time by the minute.