Although originally invented as sources of energy, lamps (deepa/deepam/diya) in most South Asian households have always been more than ordinary domestic objects. Lit each evening, the act of lighting a lamp is not only for illumination but also emerges from belief systems that carry forward inherited habits. Within this routine existed a subtle awareness — one that linked duration, resource, and human habit through the slow depletion of oil. Today, these non-electric lamps persist mostly as ritual artefacts, brought out on occasion rather than lived with daily. Timelapse looks back to that intimacy   —  to a time when illumination was an act of care, when the fading of light marked not absence, but the quiet rhythm of time passing.

In Timelapse, this disappearance is revisited through material means—an attempt at a contemporary reappearance that negotiates the balance between tradition and modern comfort. The industrial-looking lamp, though seemingly minimalist, emerges from an engagement with unlikely materials and tools. Stainless-steel sheets were cut, rolled, and manually welded using heavy-gauge equipment typically reserved for larger constructions, to form this delicate, finely balanced object. Producing the lamp demanded precision, coordination, and care. When observed closely, the traces of this process remain visible: the subtle marks, irregularities, and human errors that testify to its making.