Rashid Bilimoria
mfa student thesis
MassArt X SoWa
Artist Statement
Rashid Bilimoria
In my work, I juxtapose architectural and landscape imagery to make symbolic connections between land, materiality, and power. I visited stone quarries and gravel pits in Vermont, including an abandoned marble quarry high up on a forested hillside. Materials from these sites were used to build some of the iconic buildings at Harvard and MIT, including the white-marbled Harvard Medical School, MIT’s Great Dome, and the modernist Carpenter Center. These imposing facades serve as physical containers for institutional power and privilege. To quote Friedrich Nietzsche: “In architecture, the pride of man, his triumph over gravitation, his will to power assume visible form.”
For my final review project titled ‘Monolithic’ I visually explore the concepts of excavation and exclusion. Structures expected to be grand and inspiring function as authoritarian and inaccessible, while the excavated landscape appears aesthetically charged in uncanny ways.
Exhibition Dates:
April 19th - May 25th, 2025
Location:
MassArt X SoWa
Suite C-8
460 Harrison Ave.
Boston, MA 02118
