Pratibha Dakoji
A Page from the Diary of an Artist
Sukanya Garg


Walking to her neighborhood stationary in Hauz Khas market to purchase a meticulously lined diary, Pratibha Dakoji would have never imagined that those successive visits, across a timeline of years, would amount to more than a mere repository of words about forgone memories, emerging from their chrysalis in the year 2018, streaming into a gallery space, finally metamorphosing into The Recycled Diary Project.

The Recycled Diary Project, a conceptual art installation by artist Pratibha Dakoji, explores themes of memory and mindfulness, extending the personal consciousness to include the environmental consciousness through the recycling of waste paper of over 60 diaries written over the course of the artist’s life. Through the project, she explores the concept of using waste paper and recycling it for its creative metamorphosis. Art and society have been essential aspects of the history of any time. In the present times of increasing environmental crises, Dakoji believes that sustainability is indispensable. Consequently, through the use of new ways, methods and mediums to approach an idea, in this case through the act of tearing, folding and rolling used sheets of paper into tiny balls to create an art installation, Dakoji attempts to imbue the seed of creative recycling in her practice.


On being questioned about the practice of writing a diary, Dakoji mentioned that the intention was purely therapeutic to begin with. Writing was a way of communication, an outlet during a period of solitude and hardship in her life. She used to travel extensively, especially going on pilgrimages, and these pages subsequently documented the details of her experiences. Unlike the general impression of a personal diary which is imbued with an air of secrecy, Dakoji’s diary wasn’t an account of her veiled parallel universe with any clandestine desires or details. It was, rather, a scribbled soliloquy, for the most part. The artist reminisces about how she wrote a poem on the first page of each diary, giving it its own inauguration of sorts. One such first page amongst the many firsts of her 60 diaries is inked in the following words:

“As days pass by
New experiences
Evolves one … and
Every dimension is an
Understanding of
Oneself amongst others
In a circle of souls!”

The Recycled Diary Project, then, is not just rooted in the past, paying homage to a lifetime of memories, but also in the present wherein the exhibition itself turns into another page from the diary of the artist. Most importantly, though, it offers a vision for the future – one that embraces the environment as part of the individual and collective conscious.