Saju Kunhan b. 1983

The floor pieces are from the red oxide flooring of the artist's ancestral home in Palakkad district, Kerala. Even though some portion of the house got renovated later on, eventually the structure got destroyed due to negligence and partition of the property. Now only the site remains with the accumulated debris.
Red oxide floorings originally introduced by Portuguese and Italian traders, was symbolic of the state’s progress and was there around ages especially in the southern states. Saju has an intimate affection with these floor pieces, as he has spent some part of his life with this.
As there is no traceable history available about his community's existence, and Saju is trying to dig through his history through the oral narratives shared with him by the elders of his extended family. Saju tried to correlate the shared history with the speculated history available in the public about our community. Unfortunately, his forefathers have not left any traces of their life in any part of the house or architecture, which could have been helpful for the next generation. This is the case with majority of the lower-class communities. So, for him the process of engraving is a kind of digging for the past and so the narratives on the pieces are my interpretation. Through searching his own history and existence, he is also searching the existence of a larger community, which is about 20% of the state’s population.
The narratives reveal different existence of his people in different time periods. The geographical areas shown in each piece relate to his ancestors who lived in the house or in other words it traces the path our forefathers crossed to reach here.
These are completely personal, but through this work he is enquiring about the existence of a larger community.