The entanglements of memory and reality, the tension between lived and imagined spaces, the bridging of disciplinary realms through a personal outlook – all come to bear in the lyrical and delicate assemblage, that is Indu Antony’s book. Her publication is a playful yet incisive invocation to our inner and outer lives, and how we must inhabit and migrate from both these realms in order to evolve and survive. Each page carries a photographed object, with a strand of hair positioning it, while overleaf, she presents an anecdotal account relating to the object itself. In a conversation with her, she speaks of the “social life of objects”, being inspired by the writings of anthropologist, theorist Arjun Appadurai and Frances Yeats’ The Art of Memory (1966). For her, these are sentient, quotidian articles, much like memory cases, or ormapetti as described in Malayalam. It makes us distinctly aware that as artists and individuals, our sense of identity may not always arrive from where we are born or a place, but what we decide to commit to and remember.

Mazhi Books is the self publishing initiative of Indu Antony.