How can storytelling through personal narratives be used to elicit a reaction, alter belief systems and broaden perspectives? Our individual experiences and recollections contain a repository of stories that have significance not only to ourselves, but to larger communities as well. Narratives act as a bridge, connecting people to different cultures, ways of living, societal problems and social taboos. My thesis project was to delve into the fear of loss and grieving over it as a common living experience that transcends cultural, social, and individual differences. The aim of this project is to rephrase death as “a part of our own nature, part of an inner authority that knows the steps, knows the dance of life and death. It is composed of the aspects of ourselves who know when something can, should and must be born and when it must die”.
God, Give me my Devi back. is a story poem about Sorcar, a magician who cannot bear the passing of his partner and sneaks into a mystery world in order to negotiate with God to return his wife.
Accepting and honouring death is an essential aspect of life, whether it be that of loved ones, pets, or our own inevitable passing. A part of this project will also include reflecting on one’s own mortality and letting the mind wander and dream of what dying would look, feel, sound and taste like. It takes a romanticised approach contrasting to the morbidity of death and loss through the lens of acceptance of the natural dance of nature. Where do we go after we die? If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
The themes of life and death have come up in art time and again, be it long revered works of Klimt’s painting Life and Death(1915) or Arnold Bocklin’s Isle of the Dead(1883) or the work of contemporary artists like Oliver Jeffer’s in his books The Heart and the Bottle and There is a ghost in this house. In these artworks and books, the artists paint a picture death in the way they view it; be it from a sense of fear of the unknown(Life and Death, Klimt), a sense of playfulness and imagination of what could lie beyond(There is a ghost in this House, Oliver Jeffers) or as a simple yet complex depiction of tranquillity(Isle of the Dead, Arnold Bocklin).As an aspiring practitioner of visual arts, my project will present my own spin on how I would address the conversation around this theme through the research that I engage in.
The jumping off point for my research was a documentary based on the Toraja tribe in Indonesia. The tribe is known to retrieve and revisit the dead bodies of their ancestors, dress them and celebrate them with the offerings of food, clothing, flowers and cigarettes. This is because they believe that the souls of their ancestors come to visit their house. The sending off of the soul is also a huge ceremony where a sacrifice of chickens (as a meal for the way) and water bufflaos (as protectors and carriers of the soul) are made. While some may find uncovering dead bodies of your loved ones morbid and deeply disrespectful, I personally found myself in awe of their ability to be able to view their loved ones disintegrating bodies as just a part of the ecosystem which they are also integrated in. Disney Pixar’s feature film Coco sheds light on a similar culture followed in Mexico in a festival called Dios de los Muertos(the day of the dead). While I would not turn a blind eye to the extremity of the ritual, I also have deep respect for how grounded in the acceptance of reality it is.
Keri Shee wrote in an article in the Elephant Journal “When we tighten our grasp, refusing to say goodbye, or when we deplete ourselves by neglecting to honour the flow that has existed since the beginning of time, we will ultimately suffer more.” She also expanded on the ecosystem of human life through Brahma, the energy of creation and beginning, Vishnu, the sustenance, and Shiva, the ending with the spaciousness for a new beginning to emphasise on the principle that as we grieve what was, we make space for what is.
Mike Flanagan follows a similar ideology as his characters in Midnight Mass engage in imagining what their death could be like in almost a dream-like manner. What he did with words is what I wish to do through the visuals and stories in my project.
One of the major artists whose work resonated with me for this project was the Japanese painter Takato Yamamoto. His work explores themes of serenity in death through delicate details and highly symbolic imagery. Using his body of works as inspiration I would like my visual explorations to focus on the themes of impermanence of flesh, dismantling of the body and its cycles of growth and decay.
Preproduction and Process!
I hope you enjoyed my book. While I was working on this project, a lot of conversation about Artificial Intelligence taking up artist jobs was coming up around me, so I took this project as an opportunity to look into what a future for artists can look like with AI incorporated in the creative work flow by taking assistance from ChatGPT to convert my mere idea into a full fledged story and poem. It was fun exploring the different ways in which one can supplement their artistic practice with Artificial Intelligence. You can read a small part of my writing process in the following pictures.
I also self created some references for my artworks using Midjourney and DALI. Here are two illustrations of the book and the references I acquired for them by modifying and exploring some drawing prompts.
Prompt - "An impressionist/digital style illustration of a magician couple onstage while an audience cheers for them, shot is from backstage, there's yellow spotlight"
Prompt - "An intense impressionist painting of god and a magician having a negotiation in an interesting background, both of them standing on two separate raised platforms"
Since this was my first time working on a book(instead of an animated film), storyboarding and book layouting was a challenging part of the project for me. I also wanted to see a prototype of my book before I started working on it(like an animatic for an animation) so I made a physical book mock up which I kept referring back to throughout the production. It also made me realise that the dimensions I was working with were not ideal for a landscape heavy book.
In order to keep the project authentic, I researched The Great Bombay Circus and read up stories about it. The costume, set designs and names are also based on direct references from the same. I named the protagonist Sorcar after P.C. Sarkar, one of the greatest magicians India has seen and also because it sounds a bit like Sorcerer. One pleasant coincidence that I came across while reading up about him was this :-
In 1956, magician P. C. Sorcar performed the "sawing a woman in half" illusion on the BBC's Panorama program. The illusion caused a public panic because the climax made it appear as though the woman had actually been cut in half and died.
I did not really use this in my story, but I was quite amused by the coincidence when i came across it. For the character design of Devi, I took inspiration from two symbols in Hindu mythology, the lotus(a sign of healing and rebirth) and the dragonfly(a sign of good changes and new beginnings) which I felt suited the story. The two long braids add a sense of grandeur and adventure to any character which is why I use them in my work quite often.
Since this was my first book I took the help of a basic story structure and ensured that my story had a inciting incident, rising action, falling action and resolution.
