Museum Bhavan

Le livre

In Museum Bhavan Dayanita Singh creates a new space between publishing and the museum, an experience where books have the same if not greater artistic value than prints hanging on a gallery wall. Consisting of nine individual 'museums' in book form, Museum Bhavan is a miniature version of Singh's traveling exhibition of the same name whose prints are placed in folding expanding wooden structures (her 'photo-architecture'), which she likes to interchange at will. The images in Museum Bhavan--old and new, intriguingly literal and suggestive--have been intuitively grouped into lyrical chapters in a visual story such as 'Little Ladies Museum' and 'Ongoing Museum,' as well as more specific series like 'Museum of Machines.' Following her Sent a Letter (2008), the starting point for this project, the books are housed in a handmade box and fold out into accordion-like strips which Singh encourages viewers to install and curate as they wish in their own homes. The exhibition thus becomes a book, and the book becomes an exhibition.