Fluent~Collaborative & testsite are pleased to present Lines (01/06/2020 - 31/08/2020), a collaboration between Aishwarya Arumbakkam and Devon Gerstenhaber.

Along the gallery walls hang a series of 91 drawings, accompanied by 1 sound. Each drawing contains varying amounts of handmade strokes of black ink. Each stroke represents a step, each page a day. On some days, there are more steps, and on others, there are fewer. On some, there are none at all.   

What started as a single line now takes the form of a multi-room installation, filling the bounds of the gallery space. As reflected in its title, Lines (01/06/2020 – 31/08/2020) presents a record of June 1 through August 31, 2020, a glimpse into an ongoing collaboration between the artist and her father. 

From across international borders, Aishwarya Arumbakkam has used her work as a means to keep her relationship with her family intact. As her father gets older, Arumbakkam has molded her practice to accompany him through the process of aging. For this series, both were confined to their respective houses during lockdown. Throughout this time, Arumbakkam encouraged her father to go on daily walks and carefully observed his activity with a fitness tracker. With each step her father took, Arumbakkam provided a stroke of ink. Through her mark-making, Arumbakkam could imagine herself walking alongside her father, each tracing the limits of their separate domestic spaces in endless loops.  

Together, Arumbakkam and her father form an intimacy shaped by their distance. Through her work, Arumbakkam explores to what extent she can fill the space between, to what extent it remains the same, or, in fact, how the distance becomes more apparent.  

Lines (01/06/2020 – 31/08/2020) is curated by Devon Gerstenhaber and will be complemented by a letter sent between the collaborators. The installation will be on display January 15 – February 19, 2023.