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bleedsMemory Bleeds Concept: Natasha Ginwala

Catalogue text and editing: Natasha Ginwala Images copyright: Artists Design: Revanta Sarabhai Gallery Plan & 3D Imaging: Maithili Parikh / Ariane Thakore Design

Printed at Patel Digitals, Ahmedabad

Concept Note Memory Bleeds

Between cause and effect lies testimony, Between event and record lies the witness.

Humanity’s urge to chronicle, affix and categorize has led to the development of knowledge societies in which individuals expend much energy building tangible information sites. As a

consequence there has been a growing reliance on external meaning-making devices which formalize and homogenize collective memory. In media-driven cultures, the act of recording ‘reality’ is carried out by artificial apparatuses which appropriate the function of memorializing time. In pursuit of ‘authenticity’, memory is considered abstract and untruthful with word, image and film predominantly masquerading as objective comments on the physical world.

Civilizational histories have conventionally been fashioned as a set of accurate, linear constructs meant for socio-cultural consumption. However, history is fissiparous and perpetually suspended in circuits of absorption, deletion and transmutation. As a living experience of the past whose meanings change with the application of altered interpretive contexts, history becomes a sort of clothing – an artificial layering that builds identities, binds communities and earmarks the passage of time. Memorials, monuments, museums and datelines function as bookmarks in public horizons, but several stories outside the ambit of master narrative(s) go unmarked. When an exclusive historical memory is continually manufactured and re-iterated, remembering the past can become a highly destructive, hegemonic ritual.

This curated project aims to survey memory as an innate experiential terrain which dislodges pretentions of monolithic facticity, bleeding incessantly into different time and space paradigms. Art works often perform as alternative modes of chronicling, re-presenting and discussing history. Subversive imaginations re-contextualize mainstream historicity paving paths for fresh dialogues with pre-conceived pasts. Through a multiplicity of approaches the artist becomes a collaborator in the

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restructuring of time; propelling the reorganization of memory by way of destabilizing sedimented forms of thought.

‘Memory Bleeds’ explores the ways in which artists surmount expressive limits and psychic numbness by addressing ‘the unspeakable’ and ‘the as yet unspoken,’ through interventions revealing uncharted horizons of experiential meaning. In catastrophic circumstances history is further fragmented and becomes incapable of functioning in a straightforward referential manner. The process of remembering becomes saturated with fictionalized narratives which compete to occupy the void of ‘missing time.’ Creative endeavours attempt to unravel delayed responses to historical happenings and obstinate repetitions of traumatic memory.

In relation to the ‘unrepresentability’ of Holocaust trauma, Theodor Adorno wrote, ‘When even genocide becomes cultural property in committed literature, it becomes easier to continue complying with the culture that gave rise to the murder’ Tensions between ethics and aesthetics are bound to be inherent in an act of artistic production that comments on the negative extremities of human action. While suffering demands a voice of testimony, traumatic repression and denial often lay submerged in latent pools and memory becomes a site for belated recurrence.

The Artists in this exhibition have revisited and contributed to erased histories of experiential loss and pain. By presenting ‘absence’ and making silences present, the Arts become effective intermediaries between speech and silence in historical narrativity.

Creative expressions also appear as splinters of recovered memories, serving as self-conscious archives as well as remembrance rituals in sites of enforced silence and cultural amnesia. We live in paradoxical times; while there is an overload of evidence testifying to the socio-political violence that permeates all aspects of contemporary life, there is simultaneously a growing apathy toward the destructive capacity of violence. While the accessing of certain historical Memoryscapes may impel insecurity and hatred in volatile settings, the price of forgetting may be even higher.

Natasha Ginwala

Concept Note

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HAS HISTORY

FORGOTTEN YOU?

HOW DO YOU REMEMBER?

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This project aims to survey memory as an innate experiential terrain which

dislodges pretentions of monolithic facticity, bleeding incessantly into different

time and space paradigms. Art works often perform as alternative modes of

chronicling, re-presenting and discussing history. Creative expressions also appear

as splinters of recovered memories, serving as self-conscious archives as well as

remembrance rituals in sites of enforced silence and cultural amnesia.

Fill in the GAPS or create new ones… Share freely, make paper-planes,

trash sustainably, construct fancy origami – preferably return in person

to M.F. Hussain Art Gallery

Location M. F. Hussain Art Gallery

The M.F. Hussain Art Gallery is a recent addition to the pre-independence era educational institution Jamia Milia Islamia located in New Delhi, India. Jamia Milia Islamia is a multi-disciplinary university complex that was established in 1920. The main campus is surrounded by a plethora of research centres, making it a dynamic learning environment for students in the capital city.

The University was born during an intense period of the Indian freedom movement and has remained a simmering activist site. While it continues to be regarded as a high-quality progressive institution the rising levels of communal violence and intolerant attitudes sweeping across Delhi have dampened the spirit of public solidarity and altered the multi-ethnic social profile that greatly enriched the institution.

This gallery has been named after Maqbool Fida Hussain, a prominent Indian artist who has remained a victim of communal onslaught for over a decade and now lives abroad in self-imposed exile. The 94-year-old artist pioneered the initial turn toward avant-garde art in the country and has played an elemental role in placing Indian contemporary art on the global

Exterior, M. F. Hussain Gallery, Jamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi

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art map. This tribute also functions as a political gesture that advocates a secular arts sphere and protests the use of mob censorship to impinge upon artistic freedom.

The Art gallery and Cafe complex was inaugurated in 2008, and has become a creative hub for cultural initiatives initiated by the massive student community and also independent curated projects. The gallery is also meant to exhibit the University’s large permanent collection of Modern and contemporary Indian Art.

The Gallery is divided into different parts and is ingeniously built to house diverse creative expressions. The layout is such that the interior and exterior realms are strategically enmeshed thereby facilitating communication between the external environ and the interior white cube. The front enclosure overlooks a large landscaped garden and the full length glass wall treated with a filter of aluminium louvers allows for natural lighting. The main gallery is a sprawling windowless space and may be partitioned as required. Multiple doorways facilitate easy movement inside the gallery. The front garden and exterior sculpture

Interior, M. F. Hussain Gallery, Jamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi

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court are ideal for large-scale installations and Performance Art. Adjacent to the sculpture court are two small self-contained studio spaces for resident artists.

Unlike many private galleries situated in trendy locations in the city, the M. F. Hussain Art Gallery functions as a lively community space intent on inviting public access and site responsive art initiatives.

Architect: Romi Khosla Design Studios

Site area: 3600 m2 Built area: 810 m2 Completion date: October 2008

Garden, M. F. Hussain Gallery, Jamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi

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Installation Note

This project is envisioned as a two-week long interactive initiative. Memory Bleeds attempts to activate spatial terrains as well as cerebral topographies by presenting a multifactorial aesthetic experience.

Pamphlets (sample designs provided) will be circulated to act as informal invites to the show and more significantly to encourage participants to explore history and memory ‘creation’ as instantaneous, re-generative constructs. Pamphlet dispensers will be placed in the Café and other sections of the campus. Eventually, visitors are invited to add to the creation of a fluid archive in the main gallery which will stand as a visual thought conglomerate. (See Fig. 10 in the gallery plan)

The Performance piece Old Fashioned by Monali Meher will be performed in the Sculpture court and Inder Salim’s Performance poetry, The Other 1857 will be a flowing piece spread over different areas of the complex. Both pieces will be performed on the opening day of the exhibition. (Additional information in Artist Profile section)

The closing event includes a film screening, Had-Anhad as well as music concert organized by The Kabir Project. (Additional information in Artist Profile section)

All other installation details mentioned in the Gallery plan.

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M. F. Hussain Art GalleryJamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi

3D – Bird’s Eye View

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Legend1. Old Fashioned, Monali Meher2. The Other 1857, Inder Salim3. Transformation, Mahbubur Rahman4. Daily Checkup, Desire Machine Collective5. Threat, Shilpa Gupta6. Hunt, Monali Meher7. Karbalas (Wars of resistance), Anita Dube8. Had-anhad & Music Concert, The Kabir Project9. The World / living in the round, Sonia Khurana10. Memory Bleeds – Collective Response

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M. F. Hussain Art GalleryJamia Milia Islamia University, New DelhiGallery Plan

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This project aims to survey memory as an innate experiential terrain which

dislodges pretentions of monolithic facticity, bleeding incessantly into different

time and space paradigms. Art works often perform as alternative modes of

chronicling, re-presenting and discussing history. Creative expressions also appear

as splinters of recovered memories, serving as self-conscious archives as well as

remembrance rituals in sites of enforced silence and cultural amnesia.

Fill in the GAPS or create new ones… Share freely, make paper-planes,

trash sustainably, construct fancy origami – preferably return in person

to M.F. Hussain Art Gallery

AFFIXIDENTITY

Virtual representations of the proposed work in the M. F. Hussain Gallery space. From top left: Hunt by Monali Meher, Karabalas by Anita Dube and The World / living in the round by Sonia Khurana and Old Fashioned by Monali Meher

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anita dube

mem•o•ry bleedsArtist Profile Anita Dube

Anita Dube (b. 1958) is a trained Art Historian and critic. Until the late 80’s she was closely involved in the activities of the Indian radical painters and sculptors association. A young group of artists whose visual vocabulary and critical thinking was divergent from the more settled, narrative painting traditions of the ‘Baroda School’.

Dube’s engagement with theory may have prompted her to create tangible constructs from linguistic elements. In a self-conscious appropriative mode this artist fashions architectural artefacts and carves ‘verbal’ landscapes, wherein words are brought down from intellectual shelves and present themselves as dynamic forms in physical spaces. Entrenched definitions and material appearances are often held in counter-point, thereby offering the spectator a fresh trajectory of meaning.

From industrial waste to delicate craft materials and human remains, a wide range of found forms make their way into Dube’s sculptural works, acting as skeletal frameworks upon which the artist places tactile skins. While conducting autopsies of common materials she juxtaposes them in ways by which they lose familiarity and appear as ‘dematerialized’ ciphers.

Dube’s sculptural expressions act as social metaphors as well as purveyors of personal memory. She occupies the liminal space between opposites, performing as a crucible for contrasting narrative flows and cultural myths. Being situated in a socio-economic paradigm wherein globalized excess and excruciating shortages exist side by side, the artist adopts a conceptual process involving the salvaging and transformation of urban debris. Re-use is critical to her cultivated aesthetics, as she moulds odd fragments into intricately mediated structures.

Artist Profiles

Above: ah (a sigh), 2008

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KARBALAS (Wars of Resistance), 2004-2005 In Hannah Arendt’s view, the society of the nation in the modern world is ‘that curiously hybrid realm where private interests assume public significance’ and the two realms flow unceasingly and uncertainly into each other ‘like waves in the never ending stream of the life-process itself’.

In KARBALAS (wars of resistance), Dube contemplates the devastation caused by war and communal riots in the present day. By employing media imagery that widely circulates in popular visual horizons, she culled out scenes of degradation and insecurity and placed them with found footage of historic events like the Iraq war (2003) and the Babri Masjid demolition in Northern India

(1992). These images have been placed as translucent ornaments within a massive ‘Jali-like’ screen made of Styrofoam packaging material. The Jali is a highly-crafted, distinctive architectural feature found largely in Islamic building traditions that separates spaces and yet allows access to interior realms. The inserted images resemble stained glass motifs found in Christian sacred architecture. Hence, while critiquing the rise of fundamentalism, the artist also attempts a symbolic amalgamation of cultural expressions at a time of immense disharmony.

Above: KARBALAS (Wars of Resistance), 2004-2005Top: Detail

desire machine

mem•o•ry bleedsArtist Profile Desire Machine Collective

Desire Machine began as a rebellious creative vision in 2004, realised by Sonal Jain and Mriganka Madhulaillya. By experimenting with a varied set of art practices ranging from photography, multimedia to video and film, the collective aims to re-negotiate synthetic boundaries between ‘art’ and ‘non-art’ through an incessant engagement with societal structures, human behaviour and cultural landscapes. Desire Machine’s initiatives are critically informed by its location in Guwahati, North Eastern India – a conflict belt that has experienced immense militarisation, surveillance and political violence since several decades.

‘Desire Machine arises from the need to replace the paranoid, capitalist, neurotic with schizoanalysis: a molecular, schizophrenizing point of view that sets free the autoproductive unconscious.’ (info from official website).

Sonal Jain is a Fine Arts graduate from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, (1994- 1998). She has taught Communication Design at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (1999-2002).

Mriganka Madhulaillya, a Physics graduate completed his Post Graduation in Film and Video from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (2001 to 2003). He currently holds a teaching position at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.

Daily Checkup, 2005 Daily Checkup inspects the ‘everydayness’ of violence and surveys memory rituals that visit pasts stained with bloody geographies, insecure identities and perpetual suspicion. The video work evokes a sensorial experience wherein each one is a potential suspect and therefore, an imagined topography of targets becomes an irrepressible reality.

Facing Page: Video Stills from Daily Checkup, 2005

Artist Profiles

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Artist Profiles

inder salim

mem•o•ry bleedsArtist Profile Inder Salim

Inder Salim (b. 1965), like his adopted name this artist’s practice is a confluence of eclectic happenings. Inder migrated from Kashmir to New Delhi in the early 90s. Ever since, he has employed art not only as a voice of dissent but also a platform for dialogue. Art is not a career opportunity for him, but rather a second skin. Several of Inder’s works are constructed as spontaneous responses to social realities and are produced in ‘extra’ institutional settings. The artist maintains a regular blog that survives as a virtual archive of his subversive praxis. Many of his ‘live actions’ disrupt power hierarchies and traverse the underbelly of urban life. The artist remains in a constant state of transformation, as he shifts between cultural spaces and takes on ‘other’ identities.

His most recent project is the International Art Karavan, a travelling art collective that will visit 9 locations in India, aiming to initiate creative endeavours beyond zones of established art-viewing spaces and niche audiences. The Art Karavan is also a socio-cultural project that will

strive to generate hope and togetherness in a time of insecurity and strife.

The Other 1857, 2008 The uprising of 1857 has stood out

in texts on ‘Indian history’ as a significant sepoy mutiny, the earliest

serious threat to British imperialism in India and also the first war of independence. A profusion of parallel discourses exist in academic alcoves and popular memory. Moreover, the event is marked as a ‘Great rebellion’ due to its political relevance however; the severity of the conflict in terms of socio-economic turmoil and human loss is

often overlooked.

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inder salim

mem•o•ry bleedsThe other 1857 mocks at the patriotic fervour with which the revolt has been monumentalized. Instead, Inder examines the seed of rebellion and places it within an antithetical context. While drawing parallels between the Indian sepoy of 1857 and the contemporary bandwallah, the artist charts a subaltern narrative that uncovers the velocity of violence and undaunted repression at the fringes of documented histories.

The artist performed this poem at Trafalgar Square, beneath the statue of General Henry Havelock and distributed copies to bystanders along with a few grains of rice. It unravels as a conversation between a colonized native and a regal colonizer. Later, despite police forbiddance Inder went on to stand beside the Queen’s Guard wearing his bright red Bandwallah uniform with “1857” appliquéd on the back.

“One million died, And I was born: INDIA 1857”

Facing Page: Ghazal Numa, 2009Above: The Other 1857 at Trafalgar Square, 2008

Artist Profiles

kabir project

mem•o•ry bleedsArtist Profile The Kabir Project

The Kabir Project is a multimedia project which strives to document the enduring presence of 15th century mystic weaver poet, Kabir in popular imagination and social worlds. Through a compelling juxtaposition of image, text, song and conversation, the many versions of Kabir are dynamically foregrounded. His potent messages on

non-violence, humility and secularism have entered contemporary times as a fragmented body of oral traditions. The project meanders through far-flung terrains to capture the socio-political relevance of Kabir’s poetry amidst disparate traditions. Through the astounding power of music Kabir’s words are brought to a variety of audiences through live concerts, documentary films, poetry books and music CDs.

This is a 6-year initiative undertaken by filmmaker Shabnam Virmani as an artist-in-residency project at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bengaluru, India. She is co-founder of Drishti Media, Arts and Human Rights Collective and has directed several documentaries with community groups across the country.

Film Screening and Music Concert A film screening ‘Had-Anhad: Journeys with Ram and Kabir’ (Bounded-Boundless, 103 min.) followed by an evening of folk music by Prahlad Tipaniya and Mukhtiar Ali. The poetry of Kabir and other Sufi poets like Bulleh Shah has been sung for centuries in neighbourhood get-togethers, street performances, elaborate sacred gatherings and other localized settings. While Kabir’s words continue to resonate ubiquitously as aphorisms, mainstream urban audiences are often unaware of the extent to which his insights have penetrated popular hemispheres.

Had Anhad chronicles scattered living histories, memory streams and contrasting social paradigms which embrace Kabir’s osmotic philosophy. While innumerable religions and spiritual cults prevalent

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mem•o•ry bleedsin the subcontinent attempt to claim Kabir, he continues to obliterate boundaries, refusing to be ‘owned’ by or contained within a singular belief system. The film propels critical interrogation on spiritual values, social schisms and the taxonomy of faith(s). While journeying from India to Pakistan, and addressing the rising tides of Hindu-Muslim antagonism, the film simultaneously encourages the spectator to voyage inwards in sync with Kabir’s perennial appeal to embark upon a self-reflective quest to converse with internal knowledge fields.

Facing Page: A musician singing a Kabir Bhajan playing the Tanpura and Khartal.

Above: Poster of the film Had-anhad, 2009

Left: Cover Artwork from the audio CD by the Kabir Project.

Artist Profiles

mahbubur rahm

mem•o•ry bleedsArtist Profile Mahbubur Rahman

Mahbubur Rahman (b. 1969) is a contemporary painter, sculptor and performance artist based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is a founding member of Britto Arts Trust (2002). A non-profit, artist led organization which conducts workshops and

residencies for international and local artists, students and the public at large. Through this collective as well as other self-initiated projects, Mahbubur has participated in several collaborative endeavours. He has tapped into folk narratives and popular visual idioms to produce a diverse corpus of work.

In 2004, he produced a body of paintings in collaboration with rickshaw painters in Bangladesh. This resulted in a powerful melange of popular imagery harnessed to express a satirical take on political realities. Similarly, Mahbubur has collaborated with the traditional Paubha painters from Nepal to re-interpret decorative Buddhist figures using self-portraits. His paintings also draw upon motifs from Yantra art and Mughal miniature.

Mahbubur has conceived video works and large scale installations with fellow artist and wife Tyeba Begum Lipi as well as younger artist members of the Britto Arts Trust. Interactivity has remained central to his artistic practice. Not only are his multimedia works site-responsive transactions, he also consistently indulges in re-evaluating materials to engage fragmented audiences. As a cultural activist, Mahbubur is concerned with the development of a cogent art environ in Bangladesh. He strives toward generating public participation in art happenings and extending space for experimentation by placing creative expressions in the public domain.

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mahbubur rahm

mem•o•ry bleedsIn Bangladesh local artists have played a historically significant role in nation formation and have been active forces in shaping of the language movement, the Liberation War of 1971 and opposition to military rule. Their contributions are often non-obvious as they may be found speaking from peripheries and pushing for radical alternatives to curb rising political decadence and destructive socio-cultural values. Mahbubur is one of those voices, articulating an untiring critique of violence in a segmented society.

As a radical storyteller, Mahbubur often narrates unpalatable tales, choosing to contextualize issues that most prefer to ignore – such as war, rape and self-destruction. He drafts his work using a sharp sense of humour, titillating the mind through uncanny use of physical material and human form.

Transformation, 2004 Transformation is an ongoing performance, which began in 2004. By wearing a jute mesh with horns, the artist appears as a masked being grappling with his device of imprisonment. As a blinded entity he stumbles into exterior spaces, representing the condition of turmoil and incapacitation of his people. The costume thus, plays a dual function – firstly, as a narrative device and secondly, as a transformative tool enabling an embodied experience.

The photographed performance was inspired by a Bangladeshi story by writer and poet Syed Shamsul Haq about an indigo farmer in north Bangladesh who rebelled against the British colonisers. When the protagonist Nuruldin lost all his resources as a result of his protests, he was compelled to replace his buffalos and plough his own field. The body thus, becomes a landscape of contesting histories and a solitary repository of sutured memories. Moreover, the artist highlights the struggles of being a dissenting force in an exceedingly volatile terrain.

Facing Page: Transformation, 2004Right: Transformation, 2004 (Detail)

Artist Profiles

monali meher

mem•o•ry bleedsArtist Profile Monali MeherMonali Meher is a visual artist based in Amsterdam. After her graduation in Fine Arts at Sir J.J School of Arts, Mumbai; she began to explore the body as creative medium and proceeded to integrate performance rituals with a variety of spatial contexts and visual languages. The idea of ‘masquer-ade’ is an essential leitmotif in her oeuvre, as she consciously reconfigures found resources to appear as evocative tropes. Moreover, her relationship with raw materials and living processes resonates with the values fostered by Arte Povera. The ‘art-object’ thus, surfaces as a shard from an evolving meta-narrative. Some of Meher’s performance venues include, Tate Mod-ern, the Live Art Festival in Glasgow and the International Performance Festival in Beijing.

In response to terror attacks in Mumbai in 2009, Meher performed In De-termination II at a gallery in her native city. In silence, she attempted to sweep a ‘blood-stained’ gallery floor; while symbolically cleansing an open wound, she contemplated the obstinance of violence and repressed trau-mas of the citizenry.

Hunt, 2007 Meher probe’s the idea of the ‘abject’ through her installations. By examining the body as a permeable, unfixed identity, the artist examines the methods by which objects enter and alter the composition of selfhood and perceived psycho-social boundaries.

As Self and ‘others’ begin to interact, an array of primal forms come into be-ing. Meher presents a series of wrapped objects, thereby weaving a terrain of dysfunctional elements and concealed personalities. The thread performs as an umbilical cord fusing the interior presence with exterior realms. Stark red appears as a recurrent metaphor for remembrances of loss and regen-eration, memories of celebration, woe and hostility. As a diasporic, female

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mem•o•ry bleedsartist, Meher converses with several membranes of identity and ‘adopted’ cultural signs as she sifts through ephemeral webs of time.

Old Fashioned, 2004 ANGER, HATE, CRIME, VIOLENCE, RACISM, WAR!

Old Fashioned is an organic performance involving a culi-nary ritual to meditate upon negative constructs that stimulate destructive human tendencies. While charting a transient cartography the artist visiblizes a set of cir-cuitous values and proceeds to stage their ‘consumption’ amidst a collective gathering. The potato is used as an ontological device to stress the omnipresence of discord across socio-political systems. A mundane process steadily builds to evoke disturbing memoryscapes of wartime and brutality.

Facing Page: Hunt, 2007Above: Old Fashioned, 2004

Artist Profiles

shilpa gupta

mem•o•ry bleedsArtist Profile Shilpa Gupta

Shilpa Gupta (b.1976) could easily be ‘labelled’ a social scientist or even a cultural anthropologist, since her oeuvre critically introspects varied aspects of contemporary urban societies and social formations. While questioning dogmatic positions and highlighting scholastic gaps, she relentlessly challenges normative definitions of ‘the artist’. For centuries humanity has subscribed to social rituals that build self-identity by stressing upon exclusivity and difference. Gupta makes us aware of the dangers involved in the demarcation of divisive tangible and intangible boundaries. While a respect for difference is crucial for the fostering of sustainable relationships, making difference a target of violence and aggression is rapidly eroding avenues for mutually valuable social relations.

Gupta’s works live and breathe in urban spaces, mingling with multifarious throngs in the choking metroscapes she inhabits. Her creations also populate the virtual domain; by pursuing an interest in software coding and programming she conceptualizes provocative web projects that mock social rituals and latent human tendencies, ultimately trapping the visitor into making choices based on innate ethics and value systems. The artist continually inspects her daily surroundings to extricate relevant issues to appropriate.

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mem•o•ry bleedsHer art infiltrates the popular environ, functioning as a whimsical trespasser set out to disturb the status quo and visiblize social fissures in unassuming ways. Her expressions often appear in dismembered states that represent transient flows of thought, memory flashes and speculative forays.

Her recent public project ‘Don’t see, don’t hear, don’t speak’ is a poignant remark on the prevalent state of contemporary life. She has photographed groups across the world wilfully sealing their sense organs in order to evade fundamental realities. While we succumb to accepting majoritarian notions of history, we purposefully negate the existence of contesting chronicles. Gupta’s works pose as counter-currents initiating vital discussions on terror and the many faces of violence erupting in our times

Threat, 2009 Threat is a sculptural piece consisting of several embossed soap bars which act as souvenirs meant for the spectator to take-away. Through a seemingly bland gesture, Gupta exposes intricacies of human anxiety and the ubiquitous condition of insecurity that affects fractured cultural fabrics. By constructing an experiential work, Gupta explores psychologies of ‘fear’ and transforms the ritual of cleansing into a symbolic warning. This work was part of a recent solo show at Yvon Lambert Gallery, Paris.

Facing Page: Threat, 2009 (Detail)Above: Hardly bear to speak, 2009

Artist Profiles

sonia khurana

mem•o•ry bleedsArtist Profile Sonia Khurana

Sonia Khurana (b. 1968) explores the vagaries of self and spatial profiles through performance and media based works. She has trained at the Royal College of Art, London and has completed a research residency at Rijksakademie Vab Beeldende Kunst, Amsterdam. She lives and works between New Delhi, London and Amsterdam. The artist employs the body as vital resource material to indulge in complex performative rituals. The physical form also acts as a receptacle imbibing socio-cultural knowledge and operates as a site for psychosocial critique.

Khurana’s artworks appear as multilayered reflections which converse with mundane life events as well as complex community praxis. She adopts a phenomenological framework to draw upon larger questions of cultural identity and behavioural politics. The self thus, acts as a prism from which an array of subjects come to be addressed. Bodily awareness is crucial to Khurana’s elaborate constructions since, she taps into embodied vocabularies to weave intricate relational constellations.

The World / Living in the Round, 2003/2009 The video oscillates between the experience of the artist as a conscious ‘drifter’ and the contrasting fragments of her grandmother’s post-partition memories. The introductory visual of a crumbling house stands as a stark proclamation on the question of habitat as an unstable construct. As multiple histories unfold in a jagged fashion the narrators

stage several levels of dislocation. Frenzied movement across territories and between streaming headlights accentuate the flow of migratory impulses. Notions of belongingness are addressed

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mem•o•ry bleedsthrough the first person voice-overs and spaces come to pose as figments of mental constructs. The condition of ‘Moving’ is explored in all its dimensionality – as a self-initiated act in order to facilitate liberation and also as a forced state of relocation from a secure abode. The search for home remains an ongoing quest, as memories of past ‘homes’ infiltrate present residences and future uncertainties compel social uprooting.

Indian Independence came at a grave cost as evidenced by the bloody aftermath in 1947. The creation of Pakistan was brought about by the re-drawing of political borders under British headship. The division of the nation and the eventual displacement of millions of refugees is revived here through a highly personal visual narrative.

Khurana actively works toward disfiguring the gallery space via dynamic installation devices and purposefully projected disjunctive ways of viewing. In ‘The World’ the ethos of transit is further cultivated through the use of a shipping container to house the video work. The spectator hence, becomes a mobile entity engulfed by the artist’s tumultuous imagery.

Facing Page: The World / living in the round, 2003/2009 (Interior)Above: Work installed at Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi, and video stills from The World.

Budget

Budget

Description Amt in Rs Amt in Euro

A. Personnel

Student Interns (3 x 20 days) 30,000 455

Carpenter and Installation Assistants (2 x 5 days) 2,000 30

Technical Assistants (3 x 3 days) 1,800 27

B. Execution and Logistics

Gallery Rental (15 days) 1,00,000 1518

Transport of Artworks 70,000 1062

Framing and Installation 45,000 683

Designing & printing of Vinyl for Art work labels 10,000 151

Re-painting Gallery walls and Other alterations 75,000 1138

Lighting expenses (including re-wiring) 60,000 910

Projection Equipment (DVD Player, Portable screen, Flat screen television, projector)

35,000 531

Stage Design and Construction 25,000 379

Sound Equipment for Music Concert 20,000 303

Seating for Music Concert 5,000 75

C. Professional Fees

Artists and Musicians 2,00,000 3036

Curator (including Exhibition Design & Catalogue Text) 1,00,000 1518

Designer for Publicity Material 50,000 759

Light Designer 75,000 1138

D. Publicity

Printing of Catalogue, Invites & Pamphlets 80,000 1214

Banners 3,500 53

Advertising - Newspapers, Magazines, Online 1,00,000 1518

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E. Administrative Costs

Transport 15,000 227

Stationery 10,000 151

Courier 10,000 151

F. MISCELLANEOUS

Licenses - Police, Entertainment Tax, Other Permissions 50,000 759

Artists Travel and Accommodation 80,000 1214

Total 12,52,300 19000

NOTEExhibition installation time: 3-5 days • Exhibition duartion: 15 days • Artworks insurance not included • Professional fees, travel arrangements meant only for live performers and • for those artists directly involved in installing worksArtwork loan fee not included• Amount for advertising takes media partnership/sponsorship into account•

Memory Bleeds: Exhibited Works

1. Old Fashioned, 2004Performance and InstallationMonali Meher

2. The Other 1857, 2008Performance Poetry Inder Salim

3. Transformation, 2004Digital Prints, 26” x 34” Mahbubur Rahman

4. Daily Checkup, 2005Mini DV, 8.15 mins (looped)Desire Machine Collective

5. Threat, 2009Sculpture, Bathing Soap, 28.35” x 90.16” x 42.13” Shilpa Gupta

6. Hunt, 2007InstallationMonali Meher

7. KARBALAS (Wars of Resistance), 2004-2005Styrofoam, cement, glue, paint and photographic transparencies. 92.5” high x 158” wide x 6” deep.Anita Dube

8. Had-Anhad & Music Concert, Music Concert by Mukhtiar Ali and Prahlad Tipanya, 2 hoursFilm, Directed by Shabnam VirmaniThe Kabir Project

9. The World / Living in the Round, 2003/2009Film Installation, Video Projection in Shipping ContainerSonia Khurana

Exhibited Works

mem•o•ry

bleeds

mem•o•ry

bleeds

DO NOT CROSS THE YELLOW LINE

Natasha Ginwala

D 102, Riviresa Apartments, Baner Road, Pune 411 045, Maharashtra, India

Phone: +91 20 2729 0276 / +91 98118 44409 | Email: nginwala@gmail.com