Rohini Devasher: Borrowed Light

Rohini Devasher, Deutsche Bank’s “Artist of the Year” for 2024, delves into the intersections of science, art, and philosophy through her research-intensive practice. Borrowed Light, Devasher’s first institutional solo exhibition in Europe, highlights her longstanding engagement with astronomy, where light plays a pivotal role. For Devasher, the key to exploring new cosmologies between the human and the non-human lies in examining the interplay between place, observer, and observation.

Devasher has been an amateur astronomer as long as she has been an artist. Working closely with both amateur and professional astronomers to explore the narratives, conversations, and stories of those whose lives have been transformed by the night sky, she investigates the remote and often unusual locations where these individuals gather and the forms and modes of interaction that arise from their observations. These have included research spaces, eclipse chases, and observatories across India such as the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) Hanle, Gauribidanur Radio Observatory, Giant Meter Wave Radio Telescope Array (GMRT), National Centre for Radio Astronomy (NCRA), and the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KSO), among others.

These spaces and the scientists she has worked with are a conduit to the most fundamental questions we ask as a species. What is the nature of the universe? How do we map its resolution? Where does our attention focus? How do we describe, collect, sort, map, and measure what we see? How does our history and worldview shape our interpretation of data and perception of things? Devasher is passionate about the tools and technology that allow for these observations, and these deeply inspire her work.

The observation of natural phenomena has been a cornerstone of Indian history and culture for thousands of years, particularly in the field of astronomy. The science of the stars was esteemed not only for its precise measurements, data, tables, and calculations, but also for the sensual and spiritual experience of the cosmos.

The centerpiece of this exhibition, One Hundred Thousand Suns, focuses on the historic Kodaikanal Solar Observatory in South India, where every day, weather permitting, since 1904, the staff at the observatory have recorded images of our Sun. The trajectory of the Sun’s observations is navigated to explore the complexities of observational astronomy, and the ways in which “seeing” is strange, wondrous, and more ambiguous than one might imagine.

The exhibition title, Borrowed Light, is an architectural term used for reflected light, or light “borrowed” from an adjoining space to light an otherwise dark room or passage. For Devasher, Borrowed Light is a meditation on impermanence, light, and time, a reminder that our connection to the planet’s skies and what lies beyond demonstrates that it is possible to envision a future of planetary living based on solidarity and empathy.