In a darkened space at the Coir Godown, Aspinwall House, the strains of music from Pallavi Paul’s three-channel video, Alaq, beckon. But first you need to navigate your way past her richly embroidered black body bags. The embroidered objects recall the COVID19 pandemic when the dead were unceremoniously dumped in medical bags. Paul's embroidered surfaces counter anonymity with care in this continuation of her Trousseau series.

In Alaq Paul explores the body as a site of grief, renewal and survival. As she elaborates,

The work unfolds as a haunted yet tender field—where the viral, the spiritual, and the human continue to rewrite one another in acts of survival and care.

The spark for the project was provided by Shameem Khan, a grave keeper in Delhi, who buried the dead by the thousands during COVID. His assertion that death was not the end struck a chord with Paul. Weaving together mysticism and scientific enquiry, ritual and medical protocols, the film poses metaphysical questions such as what remains when the body is no more and how do the dead remain among the living? Touching on outbreaks of the deadly Nipah virus in Kerala, the film foregrounds the care rendered by frontline workers at great risk to themselves, and the solace and healing that draws believers to the shrine of Beema Beevi, a Muslim female mystic.

How did the curatorial process of For the Time Being, play out for her? Paul opined,

Nikhil’s curatorial vision—seeing the Biennale as something alive, responsive, and durational—created a very generous framework. It allowed Alaq to evolve in conversation with the site, the material, and the temporal scale of the Biennale itself.