Unseen Bhabha, a chapter within the ongoing project Shared Space Culture, stages an astro-futuristic commons where vernacular aesthetics and space-science imaging converge. Drawing on Bhabha’s notion of the “third space,” the work treats identity as negotiated, radiant, and recombinant—modelled on nebular morphologies of dissolution and reassembly. Culturally specific symbolism is rendered with precision yet kept permeable, refusing tokenism and spectacle. By translating the saturated chroma and ornamental density of South Asian truck art into interstellar terrains, the project proposes a decolonial optics (Mirzoeff) and cosmotechnical thought (Hui), repositioning a working-class craft within advanced image ecologies. The result is an ethics of visibility that broadens who is seen—and who can look—within the cosmic register.
Technique and process operate as a tangible–digital continuum. Wearable sculptures and set elements are produced through craft methods in concert with CNC and additive fabrication, then digitised via LiDAR and high-resolution photogrammetry to generate metrically faithful meshes. Spectral palettes derived from Hubble datasets inform shader design; volumetric nebulae emerge from particle and fluid simulations, lit with physically based engines and integrated through node-based compositing. A living archive of truck art underwrites the system: motifs are documented in situ, photographed, vectorised, palette-profiled, and catalogued by region, maker, and typology, with metadata preserving provenance and artisan attribution. This repository secures cultural fidelity, guides symbol selection, and sustains reproducible, ethically grounded workflows.
