Lounge
Artists defy convention and contest theories
Summary
39 artists come together in the exhibition, ‘The Panorama Beyond the Colour Line’, to look at representation
Mumbai-based artist and curator Prabhakar Kamble’s Broken Foot, a sculpture in wood, makes viewers stop in their tracks. With its deep gash, the artwork is a reminder of how the foot, in “Varnashram"—an ancient system of social organisation—was used to represent Dalit and Shudra communities and also women. “If the majority of our population won’t be active participants, then the society is bound to be broken. If your foot is broken, you cannot stand up," says Sumesh Manoj Sharma, artistic director, Strangers House Gallery. Utarand, another work by Kamble, an assemblage of sorts using terracotta pots, nylon ropes, ceramic, metal, and indigo, is the artist’s way of rejecting caste. Here, diverse media come together to create a vertical installation that’s a representation of various communities.
Installations, sculptures, and paintings in mixed media by 39 artists, including Kamble, from the Mumbai-based contemporary art space are on display at the India Art Fair’s Young Collectors Programme. Titled The Panorama Beyond the Colour Line, the exhibition seeks “universalism" in art, and initiates perspectives on alternate art history, and the Black Consciousness Movement. It is guided by the ideals of Senegalese historian and anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop, and B.R. Ambedkar.
Curated by Kamble, Shamooda Amrelia, and George Varley—all of them artists, curators, and culture activists in their own right—the exhibition becomes a way of looking at a range of representation in India.
Also read: What to expect at the 16th edition of the India Art Fair
For Amrelia, the curation focuses on artists, their stories, and the materials that they bring to the fore. In her view, materiality is an important focal point to understand personal histories, social inclusions—and exclusions—besides societal prejudices. That being said, the exhibition goes beyond mere identity politics, preferring to initiate dialogue that stir the viewers’ imagination.
According to Sharma, the exhibition represents the vision of Strangers House Gallery in reimagining how art is viewed, produced, and exhibited. To that end, the space works with the artistic community spread across Vadodara, Surat, Nagpur, Kolhapur, Goa, Fort Kochi, Ukhrul, Guwahati, Patna, Banares, Delhi, among other places. “Through these networks, we build exhibition programmes that are sociopolitically and aesthetically experimental and radical," he says.
MATERIALS, ARTISTS, EXPERIMENTS
The curatorial notes by Sharma and Varley detail how materiality shapes the visual narratives. London-based artist Imon Phukan, originally from Guwahati, uses residual strips of cloth and paint, fashioning them into sculptures while Mumbai-based Bhushan Bhombale uses scrap metal from Mumbai’s shipyards in kinetic sound sculptures. Similarly, Sagar Kamble’s decoupage drawings, using his mother’s and grandmother’s old saris, are a homage to the struggles faced by Dalit agrarian workers, particularly women, in bringing up their children.
Dhiraj Rabha, an artist from Santiniketan, born in a camp of surrendered ULFA revolutionaries, creates works that are deeply personal. Manipur’s Zamthingla Ruivah, having shown her Naga shawl-inspired works at various art festivals around the world, offers a contemporary take on folk motifs that women in various communities of the region use in shawls. Then there’s Sabiha Dohadwala, a young weaver who stresses “interactive materiality" wherein she encourages the audience to weave her ongoing tapestries, using a jacquard loom to re-imagine the doors of the fort at Fatehpur Sikri. It is a commentary on an architectural heritage that’s increasingly seen as foreign and Islamic in recent times.
According to Wribhu Borphukon, who is curating the Young Collectors’ Programme for the second time in a row, the platform supports and encourages innovative creative practices by artists from diverse backgrounds and various political and sociological contexts.
For the first time, the programme has moved into the realms of architecture, films, and fashion, with shows such as the light sculptural installation, Blooming in the Wind, by artist Ansh Kumar and another one by Mini Tamang titled Evocative Waves. The latter is a a yarn-crocheted installation inspired by the artist’s childhood memories.
VISUAL NARRATIVES
Borphukon notes that The Panorama Beyond the Colour Line has an interesting curatorial thread as it celebrates the ongoing connection between India and Africa, particularly artists of Indian origin living in Africa. Strangers House Gallery invited Zambia-based Everyday Lusaka Gallery to help with the curation of artists from the Indian diaspora in Africa. So there are contemporary artists such as Daudi M. Yves paying homage to his Congolese roots through bedsheets and reed mats to reflect on stories of identity, displacement, and migration.
Maingaila Muvundika, Lusaka-based conceptual artist, uses photography, digital collage, and printmaking to explore Zambia’s diversity as a people. Lawrence Chikwa, a senior artist from Zambia, interweaves sculpture, found objects, and script to look closely at the balance of tradition and modernity in Africa.
Others such as Kalinosi Mutale and Sana Ginwalla look at their own personal histories through their respective works with Ginwalla, in fact, turning the artist’s lens to family photo archives, cuisine, language, and personal histories of women in her family.
Also read: Why India is attracting rare Salvador Dali art
The works seen in the exhibition defy convention and contest theories that have been forced on us. Viewing the works, then, becomes an experience in engaging with freedom and a sense of liberation.
At Young Collectors Hub at STIR Gallery, 2 North Drive, DLF Chattarpur Farms, Delhi, till 9 February
Abhilasha Ojha is a Delhi-based art and culture writer.
