I Pray In Whispers

for Serendipity Art Festival, 2024

Inspired by the avant-garde ethos of Gutai, this project celebrates artists who challenge norms by merging art with everyday life. Taking its cue from the iconic Gutai artist Tsuruko Yamazaki’s work “Red Cube” (1956), which allowed viewers to enter and become a part of the work, the Panjim Cube Project encourages artists to blur boundaries between art and audience and invite a wider public to step inside the canvas of possibility.

The artists were asked to imagine an 8x8x8 feet cube, suspended somewhere in Panjim. This cube beckons passers-by to step inside and immerse themselves in its depths - an invitation to interact, to engage, and to become part of a living, breathing work of art.

I Pray in Whispers reimagines the cube as a place of worship devoid of all symbols and offers to reshape our understanding of worship and prayer. It makes the act of praying visible, giving sound to the silent requests and pleas that one makes in the house of a higher power — a quiet conversation with the divine, whether in gratitude or in search of help.

The project attempts to reimagine the cube as a place of worship and redefine the idea of what worship means. Worship is read as an act of prayer - to speak to God in order to give thanks or to ask for help.

The cube will be designed to make the act of worshipping / praying visible; to give sound to the silent requests and pleas that one makes in the house of God.

Draped completely in white, devoid of colour and decked up with mirrors, the cube becomes a blank space inviting people on a journey of self-reflection. Voices / prayers of devotees of every faith plays in whispers in the cube on a small speaker. In the centre lies a prayer mat with where one may choose to sit and listen. The prayer could very well be his or her own. Can a place of worship become a place of connection with another human and not just God?

Without colour, the place could belong to any religion and hence goes beyond the idea of it. In a corner lie hoardes of garlands and agarbattis and candles that are slowly rotting away. Does our pain, our joy, our sorrows become easier to carry, if we share them with fellow humans and not just with God?

Does knowing what one quietly prays for in a room, change the way we look at someone? Or understand someone?

Sound artist: Navya Sah