Title :

Alive Yet Dead | Dead Yet Alive

Dimensions :

1000 x 1000 x 600mm

Medium :

G.I. Wire, Safety Pins and Rust

Year :

2013

Photographs by :

Praveen Mohandas and LRa

This installation is a meditation on cycles of existence, transformation, and the fragile boundaries we draw between life and death. It emerges from a fascination with the paradox that what appears lifeless may continue to hold memory, presence, and potential, while what seems vibrant and alive is already engaged in a process of change.

Rust serves as both material and metaphor. Commonly associated with deterioration, neglect, and the loss of function, it occupies an ambiguous condition that resists simple categorisation. Neither entirely alive nor fully dead, it exists as evidence of time acting upon matter, revealing transformation as an ongoing process rather than a final state.

The work inhabits this territory of uncertainty. It reflects on the ways in which value, usefulness, and permanence are assigned, questioned, and eventually dissolved. What remains after function fades is not emptiness, but another form of presence shaped by memory, time, and change.

Rather than presenting life and death as opposing conditions, the installation proposes a more fluid understanding of existence, where endings are never absolute and transformation is constant. In doing so, it invites reflection on the possibility that decay itself may be less an act of disappearance than a different expression of life.