I'll Poke You!

I‘LL POKE YOU, BECAUSE IT’S FUN, I’LL POKE YOU TILL YOU ARE NUMB, I’LL POKE YOU TO MAKE YOU FIT INTO MY BELIEF’S, AND POKE AND POKE UNTILL YOU’RE JUST LIKE “ME”. “ I' LL POKE YOU”, I have used this term Metaphorically, to the many emotions hidden within a human being, which are so ‘IN-HUMANNE’. In the year 2001, I was diagnosed with the term generally used ‘Back-Pain’, that left me Non-Functional for three months, and on n off on months on end culminating into Nine years of Chronic Pain. Its an interactive work, where the viewer can choose to interact by poking needles into the installation as an act of letting out the hidden thoughts, feelings, words to “poke one”, so as to prove ones point. I have ‘Tape-Cast’, my own body as an autobiographical stance, on ‘The Epithets’ heaped upon me. The reason for using Tape was to create a stifling, suffocating, mummified feel of being nameless- faceless, a warped projection, while the transparency creates a subtlety as most pain cant be seen, hence doubted and questioned. The installation was placed sleeping on a bed of MRI (taken over a period of nine yrs) which may seem as patterns, forms, factual representation of pain, while the Graffiti like scribbling on the installation in itself takes a form of profanity of the unseen pain I’ve endured for almost a decade of how people around me reacted to my pain. Though this installation is a ‘Personal Testimony’ of my pain, it makes one ponder on how, we as humans, universally use ‘WORDS’, as tools of weapon to abuse, slander, defame, Interrogate, manipulate, blame, isolate, inflicting pain to make one fit into our beliefs, to prove our point. The installation was showcased at Kala Ghoda Art Festival 2011. Since it was an interactive work no needles were on the installation until the viewer choose to interact. Since the first day of exhibition viewers started to interact by poking needles until last day which was a 9 day festival. Almost 11,000 needles were used. 

© Meghna/2011