vedikakushalappa@gmail.com
behance
Mixed Media Photogrpahy, Installation
Manarat Al Saadiyat, Spectrum Residency Exhibition
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
2023
2023
Mara translates to ‘Tree’, in Kodava Takk, a Dravidian language in Coorg, South Karnataka, India
Exploring the interplay between ancestral land and the timeless wisdom embodied by our ancestors. The symbology of the cube represents the grounding energies that connect us to the earth.
Each photo captures intimate moments and sacred landscapes, diving into the layers of memory, and heritage that shape our existence. The photographs were taken in (the artists) ancestral land in Coorg, India. The collage of photographs encapsulates the wisdom and resilience passed down through generations, representing the echoes of countless stories from living in harmony with the land. These images transcend the boundaries of time, immortalizing their spirit and honoring the deep-rooted connection to our ancestral past.
The installation serves as a portal, transporting viewers to a realm where the present intertwines with the ancient. It is in this space that invites reflection on our shared human experience, the significance of our roots, and the stories that have shaped us.
Research:
The project was produced during a 6-month Spectrum Photography Residency program at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi. Throughout the program, my focus was on exploring how photography as a medium can be expanded within the context of exhibition design.
Conceptually, I delved into themes of home and belonging, which led me to travel back to Coorg, India, my hometown, to capture images of my native land and my grandparents. During this time, the work I created consisted of a series of photographs and written poems. As I reflected upon the images, I began to develop a deeper connection to the land and my ancestors.
This concept revolves around the idea of inner-rooting into one's land and DNA, exploring the relationship and deep-rooted connection we have to the land and how it influences the way we navigate the world. This connection to the land has been lost in many metropolitan areas, particularly affecting the way individuals relate to their surroundings. The installation provides the viewer a space of grounding and connection back to ones roots.
Multi Channel Installation, 3min Spoken Word Performance, Video
Royal College of Arts
Lonodn, United Kingdom
2025
2025
The Indian Classical Dance, Kathak is seen as a movement for storytelling and resilience embedded in deep spiritual and cultural roots. Under British colonial rule, Kathak was reduced to an object of exoticism performed in royal courts. The results of a broader colonial agenda that sought to control culture, land and the female body.
The terminology ‘Sacred Groves’, comes from natural sites that entail spiritual and ecological value due to them serving as third spaces of worship and community gatherings. These sites play a crucial role in the cultural heritage for a lot of local communities in South Asia. However, historically the protection and value of these sacred sites have been dismissed, prioritising the privatisation of these sacred sites for the agro economy and land extraction.
Within this context of this project, the South-Asian body is seen as a sacred grove, resisting colonial and patriarchal structures, the movement serves as both resistance and remembrance, rooting back to the spiritual dimensions movement plays in South Asian Culture.
Shot on Super 8 Camera, Sony Alpha, and Blackmagic.
Brompton Cemetery
London, United Kingdom
2025
2025
The installation invites viewers to contemplate the act of movement not only as physical migration but as a spiritual transition. Piercing through a new world requires the breaking of an old. The subtle and sacred motion of moving through, evokes personal and collective narratives of migration to the rhythms of nature and spiritual renewal. The photographs in this series were captured at the edges of natural bodies of water—coastlines, riverbanks, and hills across the UK.
Sikka Art and Design Festival
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
2023
2023
Manipulating perspective, composition, and light to transform the world we see into the unexpected, the materials are deconstructed and separated into new compositions exploring the relationship between the materiality of digital technology, nature, and humans. Just as art imitates life, technology imitates life. With the digital space becoming unavoidable, our perception of what is truly ‘natural’ is blurred.
The pieces serve as portals or bridges between the organic and the technological, exploring the dual nature of these two realms in which we exist today. These worlds often feel like different realities that are disconnected from each other.
Research:
The installation piece was created for the Sikka Art and Design Festival 2023 under the curatorial theme exploring new media arts in the 21st century. Throughout the process, I aimed to play with the materiality of digital arts, bringing digital fabrication into the physical realm.
The visual abstraction of symbols highlights the organic and chaotic nature found in the natural world, inspired by fluid patterns observed in natural elements. The visual exploration of abstracted patterns communicates the interconnections and multifaceted nature of how all these elements are tied together. Each symbol and color triggers different stories and narratives depending on the perception and angle from which it is viewed.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
2022
2022
Homebody is an exploration of the symbology that emerged from my childhood memories in Coorg, which is a nature worshiping community tucked in the foothills of the Western Ghats in South India. From the food my grandmother would make, native jewelry the women wore, local plants that occupied the land, to the nature worshiping festivals.
Homebody brings the inner child and our past to the forefront. They are offered a face and seat at the table to be seen and heard. Tapping into the inner child memories as a point of clarity and reflection, the work explores different symbols from childhood, which were captured in photographs. The symbols and images include, plants, animals, jewelry. All predominant memories that shape the artists childhood. what is it like to see the world from the inner child’s eyes and how can it define us, inform us and be a source of relearning and growth? What does it mean to return to that person we once were - and has that Inner Child really left us? When was the last time we resisted conventions to play? How can we come to terms with our childhood wounds and heal?
Thematically, Homebody ponders on the following curiosities and transformations of our being: What is the transformative potential of our spatiotemporal imagination? How self-perception is built, and the contributing factors to that reflection? Are we still children in our own imaginaries, navigating adulthood from the perspective and understanding of the inner child within us? Is there a point at which one transitions from looking back, to looking forward?