Ephemeral explores what it means to be human in a time where nothing, neither the past nor the present, are ours to hold. The exhibit fosters dialogue between the works of Ajay Dhandre and Krishnendu Porel, who ask the questions that bind all of us together, questions about our very existence.

Ajay Dhandre’s practice reflects his philosophical musings on the dichotomy between the objective and the subjective, culminating in a desire to find his own language. This particular series uses the language of the natural and the artificial, juxtaposed against one another to draw pressing inquiries into what is to become of us, and at whose hands. The fleshy softness of the brain is placed next to the clean, mechanical perfection of the apparatus, the germinating plants fragment into circuit-like nodes and equations, and the line between man and machine blur ever so subtly. Conversely, the dreamlike cityscapes of Krishnendu Porel shuttle you into the past, only for you to realise that the past as we know it no longer exists. All that remains are hollow echoes of where life once used to be. Much like the ‘vast and trunkless legs of stone’ of Shelley’s Ozymandias, the pillars that populate Porel’s landscapes, shrouded in the plumes of abstraction, remind us of the transient nature of history. The exhibit invites you to move through time, unravelling the past while discerning the future.

Perhaps, in the midst of this journey, you may find your own language with which to answer these questions.