Slipping Through the Cracks

CURATORIAL NOTE

Interstice as site of resistance
‘The interstice therefore, appears as a potential site of resistance, an immanent source of critique that is (dis)located in the fissures and cracks of conventional architectonics, emerging from within panoptic social architecture1 ”.

The artists in this show also embark on an investigative journey to see whether these spaces and interstices within the cracks can in turn form sites of resistance or offer possibilities of generating new meaning. Their works traverse these spaces between spaces and tarry in the in-between-ness that the cracks offer.

Hemali Bhuta’s “Running Stitch” presents a series of blank note pads with perforations – they range from closely stitched dots to more spaced out ones to ones that decline the possibility of being able to tear easily. The perforations in the note books tie in with an earlier body of Hemali’s work titled “In Between” which deals with inbetween, liminal, discontinuous spaces. She locates these spaces in the corners or the skirting of walls. As Hemali maintains, she is “primarily concerned with the notion of an in-between or transitory space and elements that contain or create these spaces. For me, In-between is a plane where the limitations of dimensionality do not apply.”

Both Anita Dube and Atul Bhalla’s works focus on the notion of the self. By juxtaposing them on opposite walls, a dialogue is created between the two. Atul Bhalla’s “Untitled” work deals with the slippages in identity and foregrounds the notion that identity is in a constant state of flux. In his self- performative work, the lens catches Bhalla in a moment of introspection as he looks at the traces left behind in the wet sand, washed by the ebb and flow of the tides of history and memory.

Anita Dube’s series of four photographs “Noor Mohammad” foreground the slippages of identity and gender. They are stills taken from her performative video “Kissa-e-Noor-Mohammad”. For the performance she decided to change all markers of identity—gender, class and religion. In Noor she found her perfect alter ego and what transpires is a fifteen minute monologue—Noor’s “fifteen minutes of fame”—where he/she talks about everything ranging from love to Sufism to socio-political issues looking directly into the camera and addressing the viewer.

The video is disconcerting because it is a strange mix of fact and fiction, echoing many of the artist’s own preoccupations, like “there is no more dangerous art than the art of politics”, yet mouthed by a thoroughly convincing, fictional character.

Jagannath Panda’s work looks at dispossessed and displaced populations and how they slip through the cracks of a state’s social security networks. His works seem populated by those shadow people whom Arundhati Roy refers to in her article “The Trickledown Revolution” in Outlook magazine. “They are shadow people, who live in the cracks that run between schemes and institutions. They sleep on the streets, eat on the streets, make love on the streets, give birth on the streets, are raped on the streets, cut their vegetables, wash their clothes, raise their children, live and die on the streets”.

In Raqs Media Collective’s “Proverbs in Dark Light” epigrams on time and power are inscribed on two larger than life tablets incised with light. On one tablet the short prose reads “Power surges but does not endure” and on the other “Time stops but does not die”. “Proverbs in Dark Light” is part of a series of epigrammatic, proverb-like statements where the balance or the meaning of what is said changes with every iteration of how it is read. The reading in turn is determined by the shifting light, which slips in through the letters. This play of light ensures that power and time become fluid concepts and exist in a field of flux where new meanings are regenerated.

Archana Hande’s work “Anatomy of an Epidemic” enshrines objects in vitrines much like museum exhibits. In this work she plays with the notion of referencing by juxtaposing objects that are both recognizable and ambiguous. While her paper mache casts evoke absent objects and mimic the finds from an excavation, her labels/ postcards/photos/cuttings are explicit references to motifs that recur in her body of works. Her installation thus oscillates between the recognizable and the unrecognizable, the absent and the present, creating a strange tension.

Both Arunkumar and Baptist Coelho’s works appear like a plea not to forget traditions or historical events and make an active attempt to foreground them. Arunkumar H.G.’s installation “Roots” depicts a table with wheat growing on it. In the background the sound piece has a man hailing from the state of Uttar Pradesh chanting the mystic poet Kabir’s dohas in his native dialect. The work highlights the need to preserve indigenous knowledge and culture which has been passed on from one generation to the next. This extends from the preservation of seeds for crops, which is threatened by the advent of multinationals purveying seeds, to the rich tradition of oral history. It also focuses on the diversity of languages and dialects within the country which could get obliterated in
a homogenization of language.

Baptist Coelho’s “Remind the Forgotten,” incorporates newspaper articles which have been randomly swept under a carpet. The terrorist attacks on November 26th, 2008, shook the city of Mumbai and the tragedy was documented and transmitted around the world in real time as it unfolded thanks to the media. This installation reflects on the power of the media to shape and influence current events; as well as our ability to forget.

Prajjwal Chowdhury’s sculptural work with a naked man carrying rocks on his head on the other hand dwells on the necessity and possible burden of remembrance.

Mithu Sen’s powerful video and photo-collage work “Icarus” explores the slippage between desire and reality. Death puts a swift end to the desires and dreams of a dead crow aiming to soar high. However a swarm of ants seem bent on getting the bird off the ground. In the process they give the impression of the crow moving its wings,
oscillating between desire and reality.

Sheba Chhachhi’s “Locust Time” presents an imaginary, futurist landscape of the Indian metropolis mapping its ecological and mythic life. Employing a mechanism of surveillance – the Google/satellite image of the floodplains of the Yamuna river with Delhi and its environs – she collapses time, with the sedimented layers revealing both past and future. She retrieves images, myths and memories from the past juxtaposing them with the present hyper urbanisation, and pointing to future drought as evidenced in the cracked earth. The current contamination of air and water is projected into the future with the 7 nagkanyas or snake women, keepers of water and poison, acting as harbingers of doom.

Shreyas Karle is interested in creating passages between spaces and all his works in the show reflect this preoccupation. He seeks to investigate the transformation of data as it passes from one storage device to another and the voids created when data/sound/ water moves from one space to the next. “Blob” is a simple book that depicts an ink blob penetrating through the entire book. In this evocative work, as the ink penetrates the pages it leaves a lingering trace. In some pages it leaves a marked presence, in others there is a hint of ink. In “Two glasses and water”, two glasses form a passage for the water in them. As the water oozes from one space to another it creates a strange tension Shreyas also makes spaces pregnant with sound in “Listen to me”. Here two
speakers create a passage of sound waves with each of them intoning “listen to me”. When a viewer stands between the two speakers, he in turn serves as a medium or passage. It is these liminal, discontinuous spaces that the artist invites the viewer to linger in, while discovering the possibilities that they offer.

1. (Up) Against the (In) Between: Interstitial Spatiality in Genet and Derrida, Parrhesia Journal, Number 3 (pp.
22-32, 2007) Clare Blackburne

By Meera Menezes