Fasting Siddhartha
Koshal Hamal, 2010
Digital print of pen and ink drawing
84 × 53 cm

© Koshal Hamal

Here I have portrayed the Fasting Siddhartha (one of the most important artefacts made in the second century CE, depicting the story of Siddhartha’s sixyear period of meditation and rendered in fine-grained, homogeneous schist stone of a bluish hue). I recreated Fasting Siddhartha to show how a society, formerly absorbed in spirituality, has transformed into a consumerist organisation inspired by Barbara Krugar’s slogan I Shop Therefore I Am. Unlike Barbara Kruger’s work, here the fasting Siddhartha is shown by way of a skinny figure made from currency bills. My idea was that decontextualizing the meaning of the fasting Siddhartha would be the most important point, showing how, as we progress into the future, contemporary life embodies materialist demands rather than being guided by spiritual concerns.