Constant movement, relentless news, persistent momentary soundbites that get memory-holed within seconds — this kind of maximalist information consumption is the zeitgeist of our times. We don't hit pause at all. But what if we do?
The Sanctuary is a reading room. Dimly lit. Clutter-free. Shadows spill from a window upstage left. Recorded sounds from Chorão Island fill the space. A tall bookshelf stands solemnly to one side; a swing seat moves gently beneath it. Three books sit on the top shelf — three plants endemic to the Goan peninsula, each with a lifecycle measured in seasons, decades, and silence.
There are three seats for three solitary readers. Each seat carries a different proposition about what it means to stop.
"There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting."Milan Kundera
Suspended beneath the bookshelf. To reach a book, you climb the three steps built into the shelf base. You step down. You choose a seat. You breathe.
A rocking chair set facing the lounger. Its cord runs up and across the pulley to the punkha above Seat 3.
When this rocks → the punkha fans the one in Seat 3.
A pod-shaped lounger in deodar and brass. Its cord runs through the pulley to the punkha above Seat 2.
When this rocks → the punkha fans the one in Seat 2.
The punkha — a traditional Indian fan, here made of fabric — is not operated by its owner but by the movement of another. Two readers, absorbed in separate books, unknowingly cool each other. The act of reading becomes an act of care. Slowness, it turns out, is not always solitary.
Punkha: 2700 × 150 × 700 mm · Soap-finish Cedrus deodara · Brass · Rope · Ply-board
A shrub of the Western Ghats that blooms once in nearly a decade, covering hillsides in lavender, then dies. Plants that bloom at such long intervals are called plietesials. It measures time differently than we do.
A fast-growing, short-lived deciduous tree, valuable as nurse to slower species around it. It grows quickly so that others may grow well. A different kind of restraint.
An evergreen perennial herb native to Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. It thrives in wet grassy areas along streams — a plant of quiet, persistent presence in high-humidity environments.