Time Capsule 2021
A year-end visual recap by artists, poets, photographers and people who have inspired me
Time Capsule 2021 is a series where I invite artists, poets, photographers and people who have inspired me through the year to give our readers a glimpse of their year that was.
Do spend time going through each of of these vulnerable, beautiful recaps of 2021.
Time Capsule 2021: Devi Seetharam
“What a ride this year has been… from anxiously working around the clock to rise to meet amazing exhibition opportunities, feeling grateful for sudden exposure, humbled by little successes to my personal life suddenly taking a turn and crashing down. Momentarily there it became hard to even look at my work, I didn’t seem to have the capacity to celebrate my growth or even keep up my momentum. This year stripped me down but in turn gave me the opportunity to consciously curate my new reality, with my arts practice being my anchor and family and friends, old and new propping me up.”
-Devi Seetharam, Painter
Time Capsule 2021: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
“Though I took this photo in the beginning of the year, it resonates with a vision I had only recently—the poem describes this—and it seems to bring this year almost full circle. Though it has been a year of unfathomable loss, it has also invited an unfathomable grace. Despite grief (because grief?), I have never loved life more. My goal for 2022 and beyond is to stay open, to be of service, and to continue to learn how it is that love is everything.”
-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Poet
Three Months after His Death
Let’s say there’s a window
at the end of a long dark hall—
the more we walk toward it
the farther away it feels.
And then, let’s say, we stop
trying to get anywhere and meet
where we are. That is how
I found myself on the other side
of the window, released
into sky—blue sky, then tangerine
sky, then sky dusky pink.
That is how I found myself
talking with my son the way
we used to whenever he went
to camp—through the sky.
Only this time we didn’t talk.
We just were. Together.
I would say we were fused,
but more truly, perhaps, commingled,
as if our atoms were diffused enough
to commune. To know this
for a moment is to know it
forever—how it is that
there is no separation.
How it is that we are one.
Time Capsule 2021: Priyanka Sacheti
“There were many dark, heavy clouds in the year, bringing only rain and gloom. And yet, there were clouds of other kinds too, reminding me that there was and always will be joy to found no matter how much there may be to despair. As the year ends, I tell myself, for all the challenges I endured, I am grateful to find myself in possession of my health, the many connections I forged, and most importantly, the abundant kindness I received at I find myself at the end of the year. This year taught me that no time remains the same and that light will always follow the dark, no matter what.”
-Priyanka Sacheti
Time Capsule 2021: Vishal Katariya
“The only thing better than bringing a bouquet of flowers home is to leave them for the cute little critters of the world to find. It’s oddly satisfying that seeing butterflies hang out in the garden makes me feel less lonely in the world.”
-Vishal Katariya
Time Capsule 2021: Vanmayi Shetty
Passing time on planet Earth ~
“This year has been one long conversation with myself. It’s been a year of creating quietly and it’s also been a year of gently pulling myself out of my creative blocks. It’s so important to know how to separate yourself from the noise and to enjoy the pauses.
Processes of making anchor me and remind me to observe the infinite capacity that the world has to transform itself. Which is a great reminder of how much room I have to transform myself.”
- Vanmayi Shetty
Time Capsule 2021: Aranya
“This year, I learnt a little bit more about kindness. I learnt also, to close ranks, and become a hurtling stone, when it felt necessary. I wrote feverishly, and poetry became a way to meet others and to sit together on the cusp of chaos. I revisited again the joy of curated learning - a novice, I practiced sign language with deaf friends, only to discover how seeing can turn into care. I understood that you can always find a peepal sapling peeping out between chipped concrete, and that there can be stillness in transit. Many times I surrendered, without realising, to moments too colourful to translate, and it felt like flying.”
-Aranya, Poet and Curator of Poetly
on writing by Aranya
if there's one thing I've learnt
from the ghost that roams around
seeking the fertile loam of a quiet mind,
it is to never come in the way
of the light that streams in
through a door that I had forgotten
to shut
Time Capsule 2021: Gaurav Ogale
I thought I was a wild river, but I am a still country creek – Anika Pyle
“For many years now, I haven’t known a world without whimsical visuals and sound. And most of the time, that’s emotionally exhausting. You realize that you stay quiet in a crowd because you have nothing to say, or someone tries to have a conversation with you but your mind is entangled in a world of your own, a world you are about to create. When your job is to create stories, you are consumed by it, for days, months and sometimes years - before you realize, it has engulfed you – a void which is very difficult to drift away from. A void that is very difficult for someone to resonate with. But what resonates with people are flashes, moments, silences and inhibitions that bring them closer to your world.
This time capsule of 2021 is my ode to the people who made this year special for me – whether it was brands, publications, patrons, collaborators or co-creators; I am, because you are. Thank you.”
-Gaurav Ogale