Roads they traveled

During a month-long stay in India at the Sandarbh residency in Partapur, I created a participatory project at the Arthuna temple site, a protected Hindu temple dating from 1000 AD. Over the course of two weeks, I interviewed visitors to the temple with the help of a translator. Each visitor I spoke with created a drawing of text and imagery that showed how he or she traveled to the temple to worship.

Forty of these drawings were then displayed on a site-specific sculpture at the Arthuna temple site on January 16, 2010. The iron sculpture consisted of a spiral rod supported by metal pillars and allowed the drawings to be hung by string. Visitors were then able to see the drawings and follow the rotation of the spiral, thus perceiving the complex and varied ways that people experience their journey to the temple site.