Docile 2In the fast paced life of today the handloom is aptly monumentalized as an extraordinary feature in the midst of the city life and visual culture that now prevails around us. This simple device that sustains many through their small scale industries has grown to become an icon that is honored and glorified as in this illustration itself. Its large size and absurd position on a street is very intriguing in that it has become a monument but doesn’t dissociate itself with the common, the everyday. Though it has grown in position it has not lost touch with the earth (pun). It boldly identifies itself with those very few who are magnified yet not moved. In fact its bars are well grounded in the earth and even appear to be deep rooted. All its intrinsic mechanisms are intact and functional. Being so well grounded, it does not fear coming in the way of the traffic of the street, instead it has established its authority to redirect the traffic just by it rooted position irrespective of whether it is functional or not. In fact its position itself carries out a function automatically by virtue of itself. It even seems to challenge the structures around itself by its dominating presence in a silent, non-violent fashion. There is a mutual co-operation between the different structures even if there is an air of hostility. Even in (or because of) its simplicity and transparency the handloom has become an icon in through the artist whose attention it has managed to captive to the point of such an intense and magnificent expression.
12/1/2011
