In the exhibition titled Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Bad Breath but were Afraid to Ask Alfred Hitchcock, two artists hope to shock you into showing concern for the environment through pictures of the inside of a refrigerator
In the exhibition titled Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Bad Breath but were Afraid to Ask Alfred Hitchcock, two artists hope to shock you into showing concern for the environment through pictures of the inside of a refrigerator
For artists Sanjeev Khandekar and Vaishali Narkar, the refrigerator is the perfect metaphor for a society driven by profit.
"It is representative of our desires, providing a picture of our internal system," explains Sanjeev.
Work on the three-part series titled Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Bad Breath But Were Afraid To Ask Alfred Hitchcock began in 2008.
"The project is a comment on the issues of consumerism and global warming, which stems from our ongoing concern about current lifestyles, including our own," says Sanjeev. 
The inclusion of Alfred Hitchcock in the title is an attempt to introduce an element of suspense as well as to serve as a homage of sorts to philosopher Slavoj Zizek's Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Lacan:
But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock.
Vicious cycle
"We are depleting natural resources one after the other, and one of the ways we do that is by overeating," says Sanjeev.
The artist defines this obsession with excess as resulting in "bad breath", where bad breath is symbolic of leading a life with little concern for the future of the environment.
"The irony is that nothing kept inside a fridge is fresh as frozen food can never be fresh," says Sanjeev, who believes that the amount of produce hoarded in a refrigerator can, to an extent, determine the size of an individual's carbon footprint.
While the first in the series featured sculptures and paintings of genetically modified orchids, the second will see 16 photographic works and one installation titled, "Fresh Plastic Flowers". Neon, which the artist defines as "ugly light", forms an important part of the installation.
"It is a comment on our artificial and mechanical lives, where plastic flowers are considered fresh," says Sanjeev.
Social commentary
Apart from being an artist, Sanjeev also sees himself as an activist. "In a time when everything is governed by large corporations, it is the artist's responsibility to bring people's attention to pressing issues; to interpret the world for himself and those around him," he says.
A responsibility, that doesn't come without its fair share of burden, especially in 2006, when a woman took objection to the exhibition, "Tits, Clits and Elephant Dicks". On being reminded about the controversy, Sandeep says, "It's always unfortunate when the attention moves away from the work itself."
Sanjeev, who is also a well-known poet, is optimistic about the exhibition, which opens tomorrow evening, and even turns philosophical, saying, "A good visual will find resonance in the same way a poem does."
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