“This body of ours is a living archive carrying many memories. What becomes of these memories when the body perishes? A lot is lost when one passes on without having spoken one’s truth. Especially those who ask – who’s going to listen to me? As the artist, I attempt to become the witness to these voices. I listen to the people and the sites. I witness before all vanishes. I listen with my eyes, my time. In this listening, we become communities who prolong their lost memories through the act of speaking and going on record. I listen to delay erasure. I archive to delay erasure.” _ Baaraan Ijlal
Change Room is a traveling sound installation of voices of people sharing their fears, apprehensions and desires, finding perspective through telling, listening and witnessing. Artist Baaraan Ijlal conceptualized this installation as an open channel of voices telling their stories anonymously, with herself as the witness. The viewers walk into a room with the pre-recorded conversations playing. They can then opt to record their own reflections, which are then added to the audio being played. Thus, the installation grows on site.
Change Room draws meaning and relevance by allowing anonymous space for a mutual dialogue to both the artist and the viewer, to acknowledge, respond and speak about their fear in total privacy in the context of preserving their rights to identity and freedom. As the artist continues to record for Change Room throughout the year, the installation grows as hundreds of untold stories of people navigating desire, body autonomy, grief, loss, displacement and conflict get recorded.
Change Room was first installed in the Conflictorium – Museum of Conflict, Ahmedabad, Gujarat (India) at an artist residency programme, in April, 2018. Anonymous recordings of women from different cross-sections of society were played in fog-filled galleries of the museum. From there, the installation traveled to TENT Art Space, Kolkata, West Bengal (India), in August, 2018, where more people showed interest in breaking their long-held silences, through this work of art. Their voices then traveled to Bhopal Literature Festival, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh (India), in December, 2018, and more people came forward to speak about their idea of fear and apprehension. In January, 2019, the installation found thousands of listeners and witnesses over three days at India Art Fair in New Delhi, Delhi (India). One of the last travelling Change Rooms before the pandemic years was at the CREA Reconference in Kathmandu (Nepal) from 10th to 12th April, 2019.
In 2022, Change Room was installed for the first time since the pandemic at the Rio Cinema Complex as part of Colomboscope, Colombo (Sri Lanka). Multi-lingual voices of people on the move, in keeping with the ‘Language is Migrant’ theme were displayed along with translations/transcriptions in English. The voices then traveled to the Living Lightly Utsav and Exhibition, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand (India), where they were installed under the shade of trees within the exhibition area and on the banks of the river Ganga.
With each physical installation, the spatial meaning of Change Room continues to evolve.
Since 2020, Change Room has been opened up virtually, where interested individuals go on record with the artist. A Digital Change Room is a Google Meet specially assigned to the registered person, through which they can record with the artist, in any language, and then choose to contribute their voice to future installations and/or the Archives. Visit Digital Change Room, to know more.