When the scenographer Sumant Jayakrishnan was first approached for an installation for Valentine’s Day at The Chanakya, his heart sank a little.
“I always think of the cheesy aspect of the day. I don’t understand what ‘will you be my Valentine’ means? But as they spoke about self-love, I realised I could look at other aspects of love,” says the artist. Working on the installation, Heal the World, proved to be an attribution to his restored mental health.
“Over the last year and a half, I’ve been working with a healer and a therapist because I had gone into depression and anxiety. In six months, from being someone who wasn’t in a happy space, I was able to celebrate turning 50, celebrate life and the people I have in my life. So, because of all this, I said I wanted to work on the idea of how love heals people on a daily basis,” says Jayakrishnan.
The first visible aspect of the installation is a series of images of people in twos of all ages, diversities and cultures, including children and animals, on translucent overlapping polycarbonate sheets.
There is a passage in between these layers by the recurring opaque image of the outline of a red heart connecting all these people, which Jayakrishnan calls the “Tunnel of Love”.
The rooftop and bottom surfaces of the installation are reflective; as also the zig-zag mirror back wall inscribed with the words “Heal the World” layered onto it. “It is a kaleidoscopic message which is constant and visible, no matter where you stand,” he adds.