Day 1
while scrolling through my phone, I noticed how social media appears to be a hypocrite. Where at one moment you are bombarded with negativity, news about riots and crisis, and the next moment you are given an insight into a perfect world of models, cute pets and luxury. I find this quite emotionally draining
Day 2
I spent my day sitting on my laptop. I spend so much time on my phone that I can’t even imagine my life without it. This goes to show how technology has become an inseparable part of our life, however, using this technology for long often makes me feel exhausted. It’s as if, I am a machine and the laptop is feeding off my energy.
Day 3
I broke my glasses today. It made me realise how sight, which is a gift for most, for me is a luxury that I have to afford
Day 4
I am at that stage in quarantine where my cozy room and comfortable bed seems like a prison cell with a bed of nails.
Day 5
I am have never been fond of winters. I can’t wait for winters to go so that I can enjoy the beauty of the bright summers.
I made a time lapse of the ice melting this revealing the bright flower inside To represent my desperation of experiencing the warm weather again.
Day 6
today I read about the environmental doomsday clock, ticking till the destruction of mankind. It made me wonder, would we still pollute the environment if we wore the clock on our wrist, and visibly saw the nearness of our end?
i made this artwork, with clay and an old watch.
Day 7
While walking in the park today, I realise how everyone seems normal on the outside, but you never know what’s going inside there head, what are there dreams, there ambitions, there goals, are they present in the reality or are they living inside there own made up world.
I used sun glasses to represent the idea of different perspectives- of the one viewing from outside and the person itself.
Day 8
Loss or touch during this pandemic is something which affects us on a day to day basic. However we have adapted to this changed situation and become accustomed to it.
Day 9
Some days should just be about relaxing. These days I feel like a machine just pumping out new ideas and working on them. However today I just wanted to relax and create art without any inspiration
or goal.
However though the objective of the day was to relax. I couldn’t really do that as the making of the video consumed half of it.
This was my DIY tripod
Day 10
Today was a day to really relax and enjoy. I decided to play some music and look outside my window. The highlight of my day was looking at the squirrels running around and eating nuts. there was was something really calming about watching them enjoy a free life, in complete ignorance about every humanely problem. It gave me a fuzzy and soft feeling, which I decided to represent by the use of the soft cotton cloth on which I painted the squirrel.
Day 11
Today I saw a documentary about chameleons. The creatures knows for there ability to blend in there surrounds. It made me wonder, what would be a chameleon without its ability to change colour. What happens when we take away the very essence of a chameleon? A chameleon so bright, that it was visible to every living being. Would it be a useless creature? Or a unique one for being different?
This artwork was created with a 3D pen, I used bright neon colours to make the chameleon stand apart from its surrounding environment.
Day 12
I was binge watching a show on discovery called “how is it made?”. I have always found it very fascinating to understand and learn about the processes through which objects come to life, as well as the materials and techniques involved in its making.
Day 13
Learning is an on going process, we learn something new everyday. Somethings that are said unconsciously can consciously affect the person hearing them. I understood all this today. While watching a horror movie with my friend, Harsh. I began to question whether or not a super nature force exists. To which, Harsh replied : “ I don’t know if all this is true or not, but it would be more fun if we believed it was”. His words struck me like a truck and it made me realise that the world would be more exciting if we used our imagination.
The bottle here represents the reality.
while the imagination (represented by the octopus monster) is crawling onto it
Day 14
I woke up feeling the blues today. I felt overwhelmed by everything around me. Even though I was free to do whatever I desired, my productivity was at an all time low and I felt gloomy.
Day 15
I read an article about how 70% of the ocean is still undiscovered and unexplored. This got my imagination running wild and I couldn’t stop thinking about the secrets that lie under the depths of the ocean where even light can not penetrate.
Day 16
Today, I watched my cat as it tried to claw its way through the netting of our house in order to catch a bird outside , like he has been trying for the past 3 years. I looked at the scene and wondered that no matter how luxurious and comfortable our life might be, we all desire to be free someday.
Day 17
Under the project, “lights, camera and publish” I decided to watch a documentary - explained:Beauty. The short film goes on to describe the science behind how and why we find certain things attractive. All this made me realise how humans have and continue to give a very high status to futile physical attributes. I decided to express myself through a short animation.
I had never made an animation so I needed the assistance of a few tutorials. It’s not perfect , but now I recognise the areas of my mistakes and will work on them in future.
Day 18
Today I met with a few friends from college, due to the current world situation this was our first time seeing each other in real life and not a screen. At the end of our visit I pointed towards the left over food and revealed a rather odd habit of myself- after I finish a meal, I tend to mix all the left over food to see what new can be created. After laughing at me for a good 10 minutes, they all changed there mind and started mixing and blending stuff to create a new monstrous dish.
This in turn taught me a lesson, that we all, share the desire to create and explore. We all love to experiment no matter how obscure or in this case, slightly wasteful it might be And this is a very important trait to have.
Day 19
While suffering from a major art block today, I found it nearly impossible to create something new. I then began to research on what causes an art block. This research led me to know about the role of the right and the left brain in creativity and logistics. Since this was my new learning for the day I decided to create art using my art block as an inspiration.
Here I tried to show how I tried to be productive but my creativity was at an all time low.
Day 20
Like any other person, I always take my phone to the washroom and often find myself using my phone there for hours, Scrolling through Instagram and watching videos. However today, when I forgot to take my phone with me, I found myself looking around stupidly not knowing what to do. Consequently, I found myself looking at things that I surprisingly never noticed before. This particular wall in my bathroom caught my attention. Something about the shelf and the messy arrangement of items inspired me. It looked like a modern art piece. it reminded me that you don’t need to go anywhere to find something beautiful and inspiring, you just need to change your perspective and look closer
Day 21
I have always been very interested in history. Thus when I got to know about the tomb in hauz khas village I knew I had to pay it a visit. The door was locked. We had to ask around (and even bribe) people to let us inside. But when we finally opened the door, it felt like a portal to new world. That door was no longer just a door it was our time machine to the world that ceased to exist.
Day 22
I am a big traveler. I love going to new places, particularly the historical ones. So now doubt, not being able to travel during this pandemic has been a major bummer.
However there is still light and hope for the future.
I used an old, broken lamp which I found in the “kabadi wale ko dena hai” part of the garbage. I decided to draw the places I wanted to visit on the glass panels and added a light inside to represent my hope of visiting them someday.
Day 23
Living in a pandemic it is not surprising that most of my thoughts and realisations are related to the same. For me it was really difficult to get accustomed to the lack of touch this pandemic has bought along with it. I have always been a big hugger, someone who loves giving out high fives. So when I met my grandmother today, and was unable to touch her and hug her, it made me feel uneasy. It was as if, there is barrier between us.
I wanted to express that feeling of having a barrier in showcasing our affection.
Day 24
Even though it was Christmas, I was not feeling the Christmas vibes. whether it was quarantine or something else, I really don’t know. But I wanted to enjoy my day.
Thats when I heard my dad talking about my cat, and how he is always the centre of attention in the household. This made me realise how animals are the cure to any gloomy day.
Thus i decided to use my cat to spread a bit of Christmas joy around the house.
Day 25
Like any other teenage I sometimes, tend to get worried about my future. I start wondering whether ill be able to succeed or not. Today was one of those days. I found myself in an endless spiral of articles about the fields of designing, which fields are growing etc etc. I find this quite ironic as there are days when I feel confident in myself.
At the end I realised, that no matter what I do in life there will be hardships and there will be ease, however, i can only find the answer if you keep walking till the end.
Day 26
I feel like a majority of my realisations are related to the pandemic and quarantine, which shouldn’t be surprising considering how drastic of a change it has got in our life. Due to the winter vacations, The feeling of isolation has finally caught up to me. I never felt it before as i had been busy with college. I feel more isolated and lonely than I have ever felt before. I feel like we are lab rats living in a test tube undergoing a crazy experiment.
This was made with a test tube, Ivory sheet and a rock found in my garden. (the green moss is salt that has been dyed green with food colouring)
Day 27
while sitting in the park today I was noticing all the beautiful flowers around me. I don’t really come to the park that often, So this was my first time seeing some of the flowers. I tried to talk to the gardner about the plants. Though he initially answered my queries with excitement, he quickly got annoyed with my constant questions. So I had to make do with some google image searches. Looking at the greenery and sitting in between all the flowers and withered leaves made me feel one with the nature.
Day 28
I read an article about how misinformation via the internet and social media is the biggest problem faced by the journalism today. At first I used to think that no one could fall for such scams and laundered news. However, when I heard my grandmother talk about a new “covid cure” sent to her on whatsapp, I realised that the target of these scams are mainly the people who are old/ uneducated/ gullible/ new to social media.
After reading and observing all this I decided to conduct my own experiment to see how easy it is to fake information on Social media.
So i told my friends that I am going on a trip to Maldives for the new year celebration. Subsequently, I sent them this image.
They all commented on how beautiful the place was and how they wish they could visit it too.
In reality this was an image I took from the signboard of a travel agency back in 2018 when I went to krabi islands. So not only was the image not taken by me the place itself was not Maldives but krabi.
This then lead me to conclude that, you don’t have to be old/uneducated to believe in the lies told by the internet.
I also made a drawing to articulate this realisation
Day 29
Today i went to shop for a new perfume. I am a big lover of different kinds if scents. They make me invoke numerous feelings inside me. I found myself in the store for hours testing ,smelling and feeling the different genie's emotions these bottles captured inside them.
i expressed the feelings i associate with perfumes via colours. Green- feeling fresh
Red- strong scent
Blue- calming fragrance
Yellow- cheerful
In order to create this effect without ruining my perfume I added some colour to the top of the pump spray which I later cleaned off
Day 30
today is the last day of this visual diary. As I was reflecting on my journey I realised how doing this exercise has helped me change my perspective for the better. I now find myself looking for opportunities in every object around me, I wanted to express this change in my attitude in my last artwork.
One starry night, two different people, two different pairs of eyes, two different perspective.
they are both starry nights, what makes them different is how you choose to view them.
I represented this feeling by painting the two starry nights on the two sides of a card.
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