The Master Craftsmen of Temple Columns would sometimes sculpt the stones as though they are folded. This is in evidence at the Chennakeshava Temples in Somnathapura & Belur, Karnataka - built during the 12th and 13th Century A.D. by the Hoysalas.
Just as the artisans of that period, for whom the making of the temple was an offering to their ‘Ishta Devata’, in this art project, folding becomes an act of worship, the act of repetitive folding is like running prayer beads through one’s fingers, chanting mantras through a constant humming of sacred sounds, as they fill the space of the Temple Sanctum, as well as the temple of the mind.
By recreating the original ‘folds’ of the stone in metal and wood veneer, the work seeks to reinterpret the ancient eternal (stone) in a contemporary idiom, to the transitional and the temporal, joining the infinite with the ephemeral.
Folding here thus becomes a spiritual act, a yearning of limited Man to connect with the unlimited and infinite Cosmos.
By connecting any threads – the Japanese paper craft of Origami interpreted in a new material, a medieval architectural aesthetic (a sculpted Temple Column), current technology and virtual tools to model and reinterpret it (Autodesk Fusion 360, Die-Cutting), this project seeks to become an exemplar of contemporary expression – rooted in the past, yet inexorably looking to the future.