Dongbay

Goddess Who Sells Time is an installation examining how time and faith are  exchanged within systems of power. Time appears as the final sacred resource,  measured, purchased, withheld, and offered in contemporary life. 

The work employs a rational reinterpretation of the headless goddess -  Chhinnamasta, as a structural device rather than a religious image. Authority  functions here as a mechanism through which reason turns inward and dismantles  itself. The installation is constructed from bamboo scaffolding, recycled animal  skins, electrical wires, construction tracks, and other materials gathered through  local observation and field research, forming a Primitive Futurism structure that  reflects cycles of labor, consumption, and abandonment. 

A series of fragmented puzzles forms an essential component of the work,  requiring viewers to spend time reorganizing broken phrases. These puzzles serve  as a temporal tool of slowing the body, holding attention, and redistributing time  equally among viewers, particularly those from Dalit and working-class  communities whose time is often extracted rather than respected. 

Installed in an open public site in Khajuraho, India, the work shifts ritual away from  enclosed institutions into shared space, where meaning emerges through duration,  presence, and collective engagement rather than belief. 

@totemdongbay, 2025