question. create. deliberate.
capital letters | art installation
Commissioned by Project 39A, National Law University Delhi
Venue: India International Centre, New Delhi
Date: 20 September, 2023
CAPITAL LETTERS is an interactive, experiential installation designed to bring us face to face with the circumstances and lived experiences of persons given the punishment of death. Based on letters and art from death row inmates in India, the installation features found objects, physical elements, digital interfaces and the interplay of materials and tactility, images and text, darkness, shadow and light. Diverse, if somewhat disparate, content that comes together to transform a safe and inviting cultural and social space into somewhat disturbing, if dystopian, experience of incarceration. Transporting visitors into the mindscape and physical environment inhabited by the men and women who live under the sentence of death.
Creative team: Vani Subramanian, Ridhima Mehra, Tulika Srivastava, Neeharika Sreedhar, Nidhi Kol
Technical team: Desmond Roberts, Varun Sharma, AV Graphix, Ashish Paliwal
welcome to death cell | the physical experience
FLOOR TO CEILING acetate sheets of text at the entrance create controlled darkness and shadows and block off the surroundings - a creative strategy designed to dislodge visitors from their comfort zone from the moment they enter the exhibition space.
THE POWERFUL use of typography all around, compels visitors to engage with multiple and diverse experiences of prisoners on death row. Singular words from their letters and communiqués trigger complex thoughts and contemplations.
OLD TRUNKS full of identity cards carelessly thrown in, encourage visitors to meet those on death row as people beyond numbers; people whose names, families and stories, may be lost but haven't been forgotten.
FACSIMILES of original letters from death row prisoners speak as nothing else can. Men and women writing words and drawing images to express themselves. Speaking of their loved ones, their legal and emotional struggles, the pain they may have inflicted and the pain they are suffering, their ruminations on life and death, and much more.
censored voices | the digital experience
AN INTERACTIVE MAP invites viewers to engage with numbers of people on death row in every state across the country. The data disrupts the popular notion that the death sentence is only announced in the rarest of the rare cases.
A DIGITAL SCREEN runs the capital letters site experience video on a loop, evoking interest in its stories and the people behind it.
A GIGANTIC PROJECTION on the walls, heightens the sense of words trapped behind prison bars, struggling to give inmates a voice, to get out, to reach our ears.
MULTIPLE DISPLAYS projected on crushed paper sheets evoke the letter writing that inspires the entire project, with moving images and text visualising and bringing alive unforgettable quotes from the letters:
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ON A TIGHTLY TWISTED ROPE reminiscent of the hangman's noose, a prisoner speaks of how he has only seen the poor and illiterate end up on death row.
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A TORTURE CHAIR is overlaid with many brutal forms of torture that death row inmates have been, and continue, to be subjected to.
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A SHATTERING ROSE speaks volumes about the perversity of power exercised on death row inmates by jail authorities.
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AN ANIMATED SCREEN describes the mental cost of being sentenced to and living the punishment of death.
Contact us if you'd like to invite the Capital Letters installation to your institutional, educational or cultural space.
Photo Credits: reFrame team and Project 39a, National Law University, Delhi