Nimbus

Digital Artist in Residence

From April to September 2023, I was the Digital Artist in Residence with the Museum of Art and Photography, Bangalore (MAP). There, I developed a series of reflections on objects in the museum’s collection, hosted here, called Nimbus. A playful take on Cumulus, MAP’s Museum Collection Viewing System, entries in Nimbus relook at existing artworks and consider textual edits, additions and suggestions as ways to be a more active observer of a museum's archive. This Digital Residency has been supported by MAP in collaboration with The Horniman Museum and Gardens, UK, and produced in partnership with curator Zelda Cheatle. The work of the Horniman Museum’s Digital Artist in Residence, Marie Smith, can be seen here.

This page holds the complete outcomes of the residency. To see entries in Nimbus, click here, or scroll down!

Cumulo-Nimbus

Cumulo-Nimbus is a short video piece made as a reflection on the process of creating Nimbus.

At the Museum

What does it mean to be a visitor to the museum? This ancillary entry to Nimbus explores the question of viewership, engagement and learning through the perspective of the artist-visitor.

Under each entry on Cumulus, MAP provides a helpful prompt that reads – “SUGGEST AN EDIT: All catalogue entries at MAP are a work in progress and we welcome any alternative suggestions, corrections or comments.” The prompt has allowed me to quite literally take the museum up on its offer to suggest edits to the information in its collection. Given that making edits directly onto the Cumulus database was not a possibility for me as an artist (I am neither a historian nor an archivist), I created my own Cumulus, named Nimbus. Here, I investigate the nature of additions, suggestions and edits, and their effects on an archive.

The name Nimbus is a nod to the cloud analogy in the name Cumulus (a type of cloud that is derived from the Latin for a pile or heap) while also hinting at the interconnectedness of the two spaces – the formation of Cumulonimbus clouds are usually indicators of heavy rain or snow.