Sahil Naik – All Is Water, and to Water We Must Return, 2022–2024

Sahil Naik is interested in what constitutes memory or truth. The artist borrows from natural history and architectural modernism to develop a practice that involves both dioramas — reconstructions of scenes used in natural history museums — and models. He takes his inspiration from architectural sites that have experienced cataclysmic events like fires, floods, or explosions, and reproduces what remains of them. His works are a mixture of reportage and rewriting as a means of restoring the traumatic memory of those places and people.

Sahil Naik has created an immersive installation closely linked to the history of the Indian village of Curdi, which was deliberately flooded in 1986 in order to build a reservoir and supply water to part of the region. The artist has created a hybrid work: a sculptural reproduction of the flooded site and two sound pieces compiled from the oral testimonies of the last inhabitants of the village. Every year, when the water level drops to reveal the submerged remains, they visit the site to refresh their memories and talk. Sahil Naik spent several years working with these families and with composers to create mantra-like songs in Konkani, a regional Indian language. The artist lets us hear their stories and their hopes, shored up as a form of resistance to oblivion.