Ode to things

In the piece Ode to Things, an array of objects is laid out across three foldaway metal tables: a rolling pin, snakes, jewellery, beads and bracelets, plates, and pots of cactus. The co-existence of these elements forges a mix of symbols that draws on worlds domestic, ritual, and decorative. These objects, rendered in clay, take on a timeless quality, like the finds of some archaeological excavation, detached from their specific uses and resituated within the realm of memory. Kanagini draws the work’s title from a poem by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) that was found in her personal archive and served as an ongoing point of reference for the artist, since she also used it in the titles of other works she created. Certain phrases from the poem – I love all things, not just the grandest, also the infinitely small – thimbles, spurs, plates, and flower vases […] many things have conspired to tell me the whole story […] they were so close that they were a part of my being (trans. Ken Krabbenhoft) – give accurate expression to her longstanding artistic focus on the world of everyday objects, things she tackles as vehicles for memory, for the lived experience of time, for personal and collective identity.