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One of the most prolific sculptors of late 20th century India, Meera Mukherjee chose a mode of metal sculpting and a lifestyle that set her apart from other artists of her time. The momentous turn in her career came with her decision to undertake a country-wide study of traditional metal crafting communities and techniques. This, in turn, propelled a radical shift in her choice of sculpting methods and more intrinsically, in her notion of art as labour and collective practice.

Even as her work travelled widely and was exhibited in several solo shows, she doggedly kept to her life of austerity and hard work--living out of a small rented apartment at Bhowanipur in south Calcutta. She would work at a studio cum casting space at Elachi, on the outskirts of Kolkata, where she seasonally carried out the collective work of casting. In both places, she drew around her a group of artisans and their families, who became her support and alternative community of care and nurture. Her artisanal self-image went hand in hand with her choice of a labour-intensive technique of sculpture-making in the reinvented indigenous lost-wax method of metal casting that she developed over time into her signature art form.

Using a translated title from one of the artist’s own writings, From the Depth of the Mould, the book uses the metaphor of her mould-making and casting process to look closely at the themes of labour and work, material and technique, struggle and resilience in her life story. Like her moulds, the artist’s persona and productions emerge in these pages through layers of writing and visual imagery. This is both an art and archival book, presenting hitherto unpublished photographs, personal papers as well as a rich spread of articles, memoirs and images.