HER: Within and Without is a two-year collaboration between ceramic artist Ruby Jhunjhunwala and lens based artist Shraddha Borawake. What started as a fun project soon evolved into a collaborative large-scale mixed media installation.
A dialogue emerged between the language of clay and images.The two artists bound by Her image, and Her peripheries mingled their energies through an emancipating flow.
This collaboration by nature has been an artistic, personal and spiritual exploration of two artists living in Pune. Both come from two different generations, expressing with two different mediums, with distinct ideologies, transcended questions of authorship.
The whole artwork reflects a very clean gentle yet powerful feminine feel. The installations flow into each other without any distinct boundaries.
For Ruby the entire project is an experience of reappearing dialogues. She says, “Many facets of my life that felt like bygones are re-emerging in every aspect of this photograph. It takes me back to the memories of stitching and sewing, This image of a rural home brings back childhood memories of my home in Dholpur. The rugged over-worn shoes and the scattered chappals remind me of the era of way side cobblers that has now disappeared.
The niche (allaa) in the tumbling, crumbling mud walls is a recall from my mother’s village home in Kalpi.”
The entire show stands unique as a pure experience of two creative persons collaborating & working with unfamiliar mediums.
Yes there is a conveyance that to be a female artist one does not necessarily have to defy important roles that a woman plays in her life. Ruby has never regretted being in her role of wife, mother, daughter in law and caregiver. While Shraddha has tested current norms by experiencing both the aspects of modern approach and traditional expectations in order to find her own balance.
