//The Dream of Fissures: From Sewers to Hand to Mouth - 2025

[This text was presented in the panel 'Afterwaste' during Mohit Shelare's solo exhibition 'Drawing Near' at Gallery Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai.]

In diaspora, American poet Kimiko Hahn, the daughter of a Japanese American mother and a German American father, reflects on language and memory. She writes, "It is clear I know forgetting. Mother, tell me what to call that paper screen that slides the interior in?" These concluding lines from her poem, "The Dream of Shoji," highlight the deep emotional divide between one's inner world and the external environment. She considers the Japanese paper screen as a rift that separates and keeps the interior in and, hence, the exteriors out. Essentially, Hahn's poetry serves as a poignant reflection on her experiences in the diaspora, where the essence of her native language and culture feels permeable and elusive. As forgetfulness gives way to remembrance, Hahn's poetic call to her mother is not just an attempt to recall what has been forgotten but a profound inquiry into the fissures that both separate and unite the two spheres. 

In this context, I will present three levels of fissures from Mohit's practice that complicate the boundaries between the spheres of inside and outside or between the 'self' and the 'other'. 

I. 

Taking a sip from a glass of water and then spitting it into another glass, transferring the liquid from one to the other. This action is reciprocated by sipping from the second glass and spitting the water back into the first. The cycle continues in a perpetual motion until all the water either evaporates or, let us say, is consumed. In Mohit Shelare's 2017 performance piece, "Mouthwatering," this act of taking in and expelling water establishes a dialectical relationship between the processes of evaporation and consumption, where the possibility of each exists only within the context of the other. The act simultaneously generates and collapses the fissure between the external and internal worlds, the infectious and microbiome aspects and hence a fissure between the assumptions of the "self" and the "other." Where did the water go in this transaction between the inside and the outside? Although being sharply witnessed and captured by a CCTV camera, the water escaped the plain sight. 

II. 

A handful of soil is taken from a construction site in Beirut and held in the hand until it hardens and retains its shape. During this process, the soil transforms as the warmth of the body exchanges with the moisture in the soil, giving it a lasting form. Creating a dialogical relationship between the body's heat and the soil's moisture, this performance piece from 2019 underscores a process of exchange between the body and the earth, as well as between the forces of labour and fertility, malleability. Essentially, this act also both generates and simultaneously forecloses the boundary between the inherently potential world and the body's capacity to transform and assign meaning. It collapses the opaque significance of the earth, which is resistant to articulation, and the disclosing significations of labour, which gives it meaning. Although this transaction is documented meticulously through drawings, the exchange between porous layers of the body and the soil goes unnoticed in observation. The work offers something more than what one gets when the fist opens up. 

III. 

In 2017, significant blockages in Whitechapel's underground sewer system led to the discovery of a colossal Fatberg. This massive accumulation was formed from a combination of congealed fat, oil, and non-biodegradable materials such as hair, clothing, condoms, napkins, and diapers. The Fatberg weighed an estimated 130 tonnes and stretched approximately 250 meters in length. This remarkable discovery gave rise to a new lexicon termed "Fatberg," which draws its influence from the "iceberg," reflecting its size and environmental impact. A dried section of the Fatberg is now on display at the London Museum, adding to the fascination surrounding this discovery. In his 2025 drawings, the artist draws parallels between the underground object and a meteoric object. This comparison too intriguingly blurs the fissure between the two alien entities, but this time, on a cosmic level. As in the others, the conceptual connection between the Fatberg and the meteor forecloses the rift between the terrestrial and the celestial spheres, the sphere below the "cultural" surface in the sewer pipelines and the sphere far above the limits of knowledge, connecting the semiotic networks with the extra semiotic void. What does it mean when the most abject waste mimics a meteorite? When our detritus becomes cosmic? 

These three actions complicate the binaries inherent in our understanding, as they operate on biological, cultural, and planetary levels. From sewers to hand to mouth, the alien, the earth, the infectious bypasses the alleged categories of thought and penetrate our assumption of self. The actions challenge the foundational structures of our knowledge and highlight that the crises surrounding the distinctions between 'self' and 'other' share a common epistemic foundation. These crises do not exist in isolation but are interconnected. In other words, the challenges of identity, untouchability, and climate change stem from a human failure to recognize that the concepts of 'self' and 'other' are in constant negotiation and dialogue with one another. The "paper screen" that separates them also brings them in connection to the extent that each concept exists only in the context of the other. 

From left to right: Yogesh Barwe (contemporary multimodal artist), Ashok Sukumaran (architect and media artist), Zeenat Nagree (independent curator and writer), Priyank Gothwal (artist and researcher), and Mohit Shelare (artist) at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai.