Akashathille bindu shunyakasham (A Dot in the Sky is a Void Space)

Sachin George Sebastian creates intricate, lattice-work-like sculptures by cutting and folding paper. Having grown up in a quiet town in north Kerala, Sebastian, in many works, reflects on his relationship with metropolises such as his adopted city, New Delhi– a chaotic, alienating space that nevertheless holds an allure.

Akashathille bindu shunyakasham (A Dot in the Sky is a Void Space) (2014) is a largescale paper installation that is at once sculpture and drawing. It is a reflection on the two interlinked themes that recur in the Biennale–the human history of travel and exploration that has expanded our view of the planet; and the enduring mystery of an expanding universe and our place in it. As Sebastian suggests in his title, every dot we point to in the sky holds behind it infinite swathes of space that we know little about, voids against which we have built up Earth-bound systems of knowledge.

On entering the installation space, the viewers confront a paper wall with a doorway that divides it into a lit ‘day side’ and a darkened ‘night side’. On the wall are visible thousands of holes through which light filters into the darkened interior, creating a spectacle within that resembles the starlit skies that guided early explorers on their oceanic expeditions. Seen against the light from inside, the wall reveals watermark-like drawings that reference ancient modes of mapping the Earth and the cosmos. According to Sachin, the viewer’s passage to the unlit interior of the installation marks a journey of discovery that here runs contrary to popular notions of a progression from darkness to light.