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Where the hedge grows again
| Pallabi Dey Purkayastha mirrorfeedback@timesofindia.com | Dec 11, 2025, 04:00 IST
In a new show, artist duo Hylozoic/Desires reanimate the lost Inland Customs Line through video and speculative archival work
During the mid-1800s, the British colonisers envisioned a 4,000-km barrier across the Indian subcontinent—2,500 km of which comprised a sprawling fence of thorny plants designed solely to block salt smugglers and enforce the Empire’s monopoly on the salt tax. Known as the Indian Customs Line, the stretch, at one point, employed nearly 14,000 workers. Although highly profitable—protecting one of the Empire’s main streams of revenue—it was a nuisance to maintain, often battered by winds, partially burnt during the rebellion of 1857, and eaten by termites. Today, its traces remain scattered across archives, maps and memory.
But at Salt Lines, an ongoing exhibition by multi-media performance duo Hylozoic/Desires (Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser) at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, the hedge sprouts again, through performance, and speculative storytelling.
Reimagining an archive
For Hylozoic/Desires, whose interdisciplinary practice merge archival enquiry with poetic speculation, the Inland Customs Line first sparked interest because it existed in pieces. “We found textual evidence in the form of tables and maps, but no imagery,” says Soin. “This was the perfect prompt to create our own archives.”
The artists decided to reimagine the lost Salt Lines through photo, film and textile installations, old archival images, speculative illustrations, and music and poetry. The entire project has been three years in the making.
The hedge, Soin notes, was not a wall but a living border—home to insects, birds, and plants, many of which appear across the exhibition. The termites that once ate through the hedge become symbolic protagonists: “An act of minute resistance bringing an enormous physical infrastructure to dust.”
Objects of memory
At the show, viewers will reflect upon the nature of memory and truth-telling while savouring the great dualities that the metaphor of the hedge presents: the material and the immaterial, the factual and the speculative, and the oppressor versus the oppressed. In the mesh-like interdisciplinary artworks, these binaries collapse.
Visitors will be greeted by a 20-metre fragment of Namak Halal/Namak Haram (2025), an 80m-long textile installation. It is composed of an array of cotton panels, block-printed using dyes from the plants that once dominated the hedge. Another important showcase is The Hedge of Halomancy (2025), a 23-minute video, which draws from archival research to tell the fictionalised story of Mayalee, a historical courtesan from Sambhar, who refuses to pay the salt tax imposed during the colonial rule, and instead uses the salt to conduct divinations and send prophecies across the hedge. “Justice works in invisible and telepathic ways,” says Soin who casts herself as Mayalee. “A single termite can steer the course of history.”
For Tappeser, the soundscape of Salt Lines mirrors the tension—and porosity—of borders. “Sound was not only able to pass through the barrier, but found a habitat therein,” he says. Bansuri and sitar accompany the speculative worlds of Mayalee, while tuba and percussion mark archival retellings. Their collaboration, he adds, “leaks and spills in all directions,” shaped by historians, botanists, cinematographers, and the ghosts of lost traditions.
A collaborative effort
For Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, director of the museum, the exhibition represents both continuity and renewal. “Hylozoic/Desires have presented a deeply researched and compelling retake of an extraordinary colonial project,” she says.
The project’s collaborators, RMZ Foundation, India Art Fair, and the Alkazi Foundation, echo her sentiments. Anu Menda, chair of RMZ Foundation, describes the exhibition as a “concerted effort,” brought alive through shared vision and sustained conversations.
Jaya Asokan, director of India Art Fair, says the show reflects a collaborative model that strengthens South Asia’s cultural ecosystem. “I hope visitors come away with a deeper sense of how colonial infrastructures continue to shape social, ecological, and political realities even in the present.”
The show will be on till February 8 at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum.
But at Salt Lines, an ongoing exhibition by multi-media performance duo Hylozoic/Desires (Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser) at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, the hedge sprouts again, through performance, and speculative storytelling.
Reimagining an archive
For Hylozoic/Desires, whose interdisciplinary practice merge archival enquiry with poetic speculation, the Inland Customs Line first sparked interest because it existed in pieces. “We found textual evidence in the form of tables and maps, but no imagery,” says Soin. “This was the perfect prompt to create our own archives.”
The artists decided to reimagine the lost Salt Lines through photo, film and textile installations, old archival images, speculative illustrations, and music and poetry. The entire project has been three years in the making.
The hedge, Soin notes, was not a wall but a living border—home to insects, birds, and plants, many of which appear across the exhibition. The termites that once ate through the hedge become symbolic protagonists: “An act of minute resistance bringing an enormous physical infrastructure to dust.”
Objects of memory
At the show, viewers will reflect upon the nature of memory and truth-telling while savouring the great dualities that the metaphor of the hedge presents: the material and the immaterial, the factual and the speculative, and the oppressor versus the oppressed. In the mesh-like interdisciplinary artworks, these binaries collapse.
Visitors will be greeted by a 20-metre fragment of Namak Halal/Namak Haram (2025), an 80m-long textile installation. It is composed of an array of cotton panels, block-printed using dyes from the plants that once dominated the hedge. Another important showcase is The Hedge of Halomancy (2025), a 23-minute video, which draws from archival research to tell the fictionalised story of Mayalee, a historical courtesan from Sambhar, who refuses to pay the salt tax imposed during the colonial rule, and instead uses the salt to conduct divinations and send prophecies across the hedge. “Justice works in invisible and telepathic ways,” says Soin who casts herself as Mayalee. “A single termite can steer the course of history.”
For Tappeser, the soundscape of Salt Lines mirrors the tension—and porosity—of borders. “Sound was not only able to pass through the barrier, but found a habitat therein,” he says. Bansuri and sitar accompany the speculative worlds of Mayalee, while tuba and percussion mark archival retellings. Their collaboration, he adds, “leaks and spills in all directions,” shaped by historians, botanists, cinematographers, and the ghosts of lost traditions.
A collaborative effort
For Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, director of the museum, the exhibition represents both continuity and renewal. “Hylozoic/Desires have presented a deeply researched and compelling retake of an extraordinary colonial project,” she says.
The project’s collaborators, RMZ Foundation, India Art Fair, and the Alkazi Foundation, echo her sentiments. Anu Menda, chair of RMZ Foundation, describes the exhibition as a “concerted effort,” brought alive through shared vision and sustained conversations.
Jaya Asokan, director of India Art Fair, says the show reflects a collaborative model that strengthens South Asia’s cultural ecosystem. “I hope visitors come away with a deeper sense of how colonial infrastructures continue to shape social, ecological, and political realities even in the present.”
The show will be on till February 8 at Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum.
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