To see ourselves as others see us

mixed media, dimensions variable, 2003

This project developed out of my initial experiences of being in India for the first time. Staying in Trivandrum before traveling to Bangalore, I saw a poster for a bollywood film, with the eyes of the actors having been poked out in an act of (childish?) vandalism. In Bangalore I worked with a graphic designer to produce a billboard depicting two bollywood film stars - instantly recognisable to the general public in India, they are Jyotika and Govinda. The text above their heads is a translation into Kannada (the regional language of the state of Karnataka) of the stanza "to see ourselves as others see us" from the poem To a Louse by Robert Burns.

The public had the opportunity to climb steps at the back of the billboard and look through the eyes of these two film stars, onto their local environment