ABSTRACT
The artistic section intended to bring the audience closer to everyday life of fieldwork, where the ambiguity of social interactions was re-enacted through the uncertainty and openness of artworks. Auspiciousness additionally aimed to give voice to individual kolam makers and prevent the notion of a practice that typified a group. The objects embodied an uncertainty which underlined the possibility of multiple interpretations of museum displays. The museum’s focus on cultural history constructed into the ethnographic present was further disrupted by the inclusion of kolam as a contemporary, shifting practice. The kolam exhibition was not site-specific which enabled an investigative approach towards various contexts and how their particular kinds of expectations and aesthetic norms would affect the agency of and responses toward the descriptions and artworks. The continuation of the kolam exhibition called for a more popular and diverse environment.
