nandini hasija

Roots, routes and reason was a spatial practice project done in collaboration with my friend and classmate Manuela Viezzer.

Here, I was interested in investigating the metaphorical meaning of roots and home. I grew up in India, studied and lived in Singapore, lived in The Netherlands for many years and im currently living in Switzerland. I have found a home in all of these places, I have planted my roots. My understanding of space is based on my artistic practice of weaving and drawing, it was therefore very natural for me to incooperate my weaving practice with the city of Utrecht.

I chose the ginkgo biloba tree planted in the Oude Hortus, Utrecht as the location to work with. This is the oldest living tree in The Netherlands. I decided to make roots of the ginkgo biloba by binding and braiding jute rope.

I then imitated the root system of the tree that was underground by placing the braided jute ropes on the surface of the ground. To me the whole process using jute ropes to imaginatively trace the real roots of the tree was like drawing on the surface of the ground with the medium of rope. It was also a type of territory formation.