To Begin Again | Rs. 1500

Youdhisthir Maharjan’s artistic practice dismantles the conventional role of the book as a static vessel of knowledge and transforms it into a living field of inquiry. Working with found and thrifted texts, he meticulously cuts, weaves, and reconfigures pages—rendering language unreadable not to destroy meaning, but to liberate it. Influenced by Roland Barthes’ theory of the “Text,” Maharjan shifts our engagement with language from passive reading to active participation. His works resist closure and categorization, embodying plurality, process, and transformation.

Instead of conveying fixed narratives, Maharjan’s altered books operate as sculptural forms—tactile and conceptual. Their fragmented surfaces invite the viewer into a space where meaning is constantly deferred and reshaped. This refusal to offer singular interpretations echoes Barthes’ idea of the Text as a site of dynamic movement and open-ended play. Drawing from existentialist and Eastern philosophies, Maharjan’s repetition, circular motifs, and use of voids gesture toward shunyata—emptiness as fullness, absence as potential.

His process-driven approach defies rigid notions of authorship and genre. He does not position himself as the master of the text but as a co-creator in dialogue with material, memory, and viewer. In this way, his work evokes what Barthes calls jouissance—a pleasure that is immersive, disruptive, and beyond logic.

Maharjan’s deconstructed books are not objects to be decoded but experiences to be inhabited. They exist in a continual state of becoming, resisting finality and embracing uncertainty. Through this, he opens up the possibility of reading and seeing anew—beyond the word, beyond the page, and into the layered, living texture of thought itself.

Except from the essay, ‘Beyond Words’ by Sunil Manghani

Editorial Adviser: Amit Kumar Jain
Graphic Design: Shruti Chamaria
Printing: Naveen Printers

ISBN 978-81-954427-5-1
Pages: 156 + Cover