Tajganj

Click here for an audio guide by Srila Chatterjee

Western audiences have often questioned a Mughal miniature painter’s handle on
perspective, decried the lack of vanishing point, and completely missed out on a
different manner of seeing and representing space. A Mughal painter effortlessly
combines plan and elevation and transmits the feeling of being in a space to wasli
[traditional handmade paper].

Tajganj is not an aerial perspective. It is not a map. It is a mosaic of ideas, of debunked
myths, and malicious rumours. It reads historical documents to find that no hands were
chopped when monuments were built. It sees sensitive laying of markets to keep
people in business – long after the patron has gone. It does not need lofty domes as its
canopies are created by flowers.

Tajganj references the antecedents to the Taj– monuments like the tomb of the I’timād-
ud-Daulah, built by Nur Jahan for her father. It tells the story of the minds that dreamed
and the hands that built them.

Size: height 56 in. x breadth 44 in. x depth 6 in.

Materials: Vintage ledger papers, found hand-coloured carpet patterns, scrap metal
finds, wooden brackets, vintage metal framed mirrors, wooden frame, mirror work on
frame, vintage wood turned chess pieces, brass wire tree forms, and scrap metal
flowers.