Jagrut Raval

Remembering Narad (2D Edition), 2022

Recorded Lecture Performance 

3-Channel HD Video with sound, 18 mins

This lecture-performance video chronicles Narad’s journey, as I am examining the curiosities on display and investigating myths that the objects/photographs/ drawings invoke.

The video was conceptualized as part of my solo exhibition In the Fullness of Time that assembles artifacts from the life and travels of a mysterious man named Narad — said to be a photographer, alchemist, polymath, and explorer — who arrived in the Europe from India around the 17th or 18th century in search of the Soma Ras, Sanskrit for “elixir of life.”

Introducing viewers to Narad’s story, this exhibition interrogates canonical histories that have excluded the great explorers of the Indian subcontinent. I am trying to contextualize these rare mementos — evidence of Narad’s quest — in an attempt to enliven a forgotten part of colonial history.

This work was developed during a 9 month fellowship program at Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral in the City of Bad Ems, Supported by University of Mainz, Germany, 2021/22.