10/10/2025
As part of the “Share a Wall” project, the third mural has been completed at Thekken Pangal, Malappuram. The painting spans a wall approximately 9 feet high and 16 feet long — the rear wall of the first floor of an old house. The building stands facing away from the Valanchery–Malappuram PWD Road, near Bhaskaran Padi.
This mural functions as a signifier — a pointer towards layered histories. It gestures to a time before modern roads, when paths through boundaries and homesteads were the actual routes of movement. It calls attention to the architectural gestures of those times — the thresholds, verandas, and courtyards — and by extension, to the dualities they embodied: front and back, inside and outside, visible and hidden.
It also reflects on the hierarchies and spatial politics embedded within architecture — how position, orientation, and access confer or deny authority and legitimacy. (For instance, a person walking in front of a house and another passing behind it are not perceived the same way.)
Here, the rear entrance, once considered unauthorized, now opens to a public pathway, as the homestead’s backyard has been given over for common use. Thus, what was illicit becomes legitimate, and what was excluded becomes inclusive.
In this way, the mural embodies the tension between history and the present — a play of structure, time, and meaning. Our attempt has been to join this dialogue between the built form and time itself, to engage in its subtle game of transformation and reinterpretation.
To us, it was not merely an artistic exercise — it was a joyful act of participation in the evolving conversation between place, memory, and change. 🙃
And finally, with heartfelt gratitude, we extend our love and appreciation to our dear friends Abdukka, Kiran, Kishor, Jasir, and the wonderful members of the Brothers Club, who shared their space with us and generously provided the physical support and facilities that made this work possible.