Ohida Khandakar

An Archive of Remains

Objects installation — a wide overhead view of the full collection of found objects arranged on an orange-draped table at Jan Van Eyck Academie, gathered from the Netherlands and UAE.

An expanded cinema installation comprising a short film (24 min), light animation (4 min 30 sec), sound art, and found objects collected from the Netherlands and UAE. Shown at Jan Van Eyck Academie Open Studio, Maastricht, 2025.

Written by

Khandakar Ohida

in

,

Expanded cinema installation, 2025
Jan Van Eyck Academie Open Studio, Maastricht

Short film (24 min), colour, sound — light animation (4 min 30 sec), sound art, programming, and found objects. Dimensions variable.

All objects in the installation were collected by Ohida from the Netherlands and the UAE during her residency at Jan Van Eyck Academie. The film traces the act of collecting as a form of archiving — gathering objects overlooked or discarded within the artist’s immediate environment and drawing them into dialogue with her long-running Museum on the Moon research project developed with her uncle, Khandakar Selim, in rural West Bengal.

In the installation, collected objects are arranged on an orange-draped table and pinned directly to the gallery wall. The wall-mounted pieces double as elements in the light animation, which activates after the film completes — the same objects that appear as documentary subjects in the film becoming animated presences in the space.

Film

Film projection on the wall at Jan Van Eyck Academie — a silhouetted figure appears inside a projected decorative plate, alongside botanical imagery, above the table of collected objects below.
Film projection on the wall, Jan Van Eyck Academie Open Studio, 2025

Film Stills

Film still — a video call between Khandakar Selim (India) and Khandakar Ohida (Netherlands) overlaid on a rich botanical textile background, visualizing the transnational dialogue at the heart of the work.
Film still — a hand holding a Dutch wooden clog, one of the collected objects gathered from the Netherlands for the archive.
Film still — a small Egyptian pharaoh figurine resting on a surface, among the eclectic found objects collected across the Netherlands.
Film still — an elderly figure silhouetted in a doorway, evoking themes of thresholds, memory, and the passage of time.
Film still — scattered handwritten documents and papers spread across a surface, fragments of personal and institutional record-keeping.

Installation

Installation view — the full exhibition space at Jan Van Eyck Academie, with the collected objects arranged on a draped table and the film's opening credits projected on the wall behind.
Installation view with film projection, Jan Van Eyck Academie Open Studio, 2025
Objects installation — a wide overhead view of the full collection of found objects arranged on an orange-draped table at Jan Van Eyck Academie, gathered from the Netherlands and UAE.
Objects installation — a mid-range view of the collection showing diverse objects on the table alongside smaller items pinned directly to the gallery wall above, used for the light animation.
Detail of collected objects — a close-up of the table's surface revealing a typewriter, ornate vases, a clock face, ceramic figurines, a toy cow, and other gathered materials.
Details of collected objects

Light Animation

Light animation with sound, 4 min 30 sec. Wall-mounted objects, programming. The animation begins after the film ends, activating the same objects that appear throughout the film.

Light animation still — a single dark boat-like object mounted on a wall, illuminated by a concentrated warm orange glow in an otherwise black space.
Light animation still — a small diamond-shaped object in the corner of two walls, lit by a warm amber light radiating from the meeting point of the surfaces.

Related works

Where Dust Remembers — video installation shown at the same Jan Van Eyck Academie open studio, 2025.

Museum on the Moon — the feature-length documentary film at the heart of this research project.

More posts