El DORADO
El Dorado was born from a Muisca coronation ritual intended to bless the reign of a new king.
According to the story, the king was covered in gold dust and travelled by raft across Lake Guatavita while attendants threw treasures into the water. The ritual became the source of a powerful myth: a city of gold that existed somewhere beyond reach.
Eldorado began with another ritual, this time in Maharashtra. The Birdev Yatra, near Kolhapur, celebrates Birdev, a local deity revered by the Dhangar shepherd community. Embodied by Sri Keloba Rajabhau Waghmode, Birdev walks for 17 days to reach the ritual site. During the festival, those who gather around him cover themselves in turmeric in the hope of prosperity, happiness, and blessings.
Here, turmeric does more than mark the ritual. It changes the way the body is seen. Skin, clothing, faces, and surroundings become part of the same yellow field, while only fragments of the body remain visible.
Individual identity begins to recede as the body becomes surface, colour, and form within the ritual space.
The photographs explore this transformation through colour. Yellow becomes both the subject and the visual condition of the work, altering familiar relationships between body and environment. What begins as a specific cultural ritual becomes an exploration of how colour, belief, and context can change the way we perceive the body.
EXHIBITIONS
Pispalan Kirjasto, Tampere, Finland, 15.07.2024-16.08.2024
Galleria Koppelo, Tampere, Finland, 02.02.2024- 28.02-2024
Vesavar Art Gallery, Pune, India, 11.06.2023-12.07.2023
PUBLICATIONS
2023 Express News Service, ‘EL Dorado’ exhibition in Pune Connects the Dots, The Indian Express
2023 El Dorado, Hakara journal (Bilingual Arts Publications)