An Afternoon at the Girls Hostel - A Short Montage Film
Women’s hostels in Indian universities provide a unique ambience that frames the young adult years of the students in residence. Away from home for the first time, they enjoy a certain independence in the way they conduct their lives despite restrictions. Gaura recorded life at her university hotel in February, not knowing that the lockdown would commence in March 2020, ending her hostel life abruptly. She has experimented with sound and visuals to represent her mixed emotions towards the years spent there. The video explores the establishment as the lockdown sets in and only a few intrepid residents remain to finish their assignments.
This film was officially selected in VAICA (Video Art by Indian Contemporary Artists) Chapter 2, and has since been used as study material at a college course for MFA Fine Arts at Shiv Nadar University, called "Moving image Form and Function" with Sharmila Samant, and will be screened in the video art segment at an exhibition 'Mycelial Legacies', in Bikaner House, New Delhi. The video will be curated with others from the VAICA (now VASCA) collection as a 4-day programme that will run on loop for the entire duration of the exhibition (Jan 29 - Feb 12, 2023).
