Pranay Dutta

About the Actant

© Pranay Dutta Interested in the idea of manmade dystopia, Pranay Dutta investigates it through ecological, economic and cultural landscapes. His visual language borrows from science fiction, architectural modernities, gaming worlds and cinema to create surreal topographies that are usually devoid of any human presence, but bear traces of people and civilizations. Dutta puts forward absurd propositions that have a cynical undertone rooted in the realities of the present world – like Kalimpong, urbanization of Sikkim, Darjeeling etc – spaces that he has regularly visited and documented. Building up on the slippery grounds of compromise that the new age traverses on, he fictionalises the future based on present acts. There is a deliberate attempt to evoke a sense of unfamiliarity within the familiar, emphasizing the uncanny and presenting an inclination towards creating possible futures. Select group shows include 'Horizon against Nature', Gallery OED, A collateral event of Kochi Biennale; Turn of the Tide, Khoj international Artist' Association; within | without, Indigo+Madder in Asia House, London; Art Asia, Art Universaides, Goyang, South Korea; Geometries of desire and decay, Authority of small objects, Delhi; Delhi Contemporary Art Week, in association with Blueprint12. He is also the recepient of the Inlaks Fine Art Awards 2019.

© Pranay Dutta Moments Before the Fall is directed towards speculating time before and up until a certain cloud burst. This will be manifested through a series of simulated videos, paintings and video sculptures that will encapsulate the "moments before the fall". Taking a cloud burst as a point of departure, Pranay attempts to create a series of surfaces, which speculate the future of the geographical and the habitable. 

Occupying Siddhartha Hall, the installation includes a video simulation accompanied by paintings and sculpture.