A Song A Story (2017)

Sudarshan Shetty
Still from A Song A Story (2017)
Two channel film, 24:21 minutes
Image courtesy of the artist

A Song A Story is a two-channel video that is anchored by two hand-carved wooden installations designed by Shetty that serve as the dramatis personae of the work, namely a home and a pavilion. 

Inspired from a popular folktale from South India and sung in Braj Bhāshā (a western Hindustani language), the narrative unfolds around a woman who has held onto her song and her story for a long time. In an allegorical twist, both of these escape her silence in rebellion, taking on the form of an umbrella and a pair of man’s shoes stationed outside her door. The plot thickens when her husband returns. 

The story is told and retold on multiple screens of the two channels as well as the television inside the video. In this work, what remains unconscious takes a life of its own, traversing the domestic and public domains of its characters and seeping into the world outside.