Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A WORK IN PROGRESS
CURATED BY
ANUSHKA RAJENDRAN
Adeela Suleman (Pakistan) | Amna Ilyas (Pakistan)
Charmi Gada Shah (India) | Danushka Marasinghe (Sri Lanka)
Imran Channa (Pakistan) | Kedar DK (India) | Niyeti Kannal (India)
Pala Pothupitiye (Sri Lanka) | Pradeep Chandrasiri (Sri Lanka)
Sarika Mehta (India) | Shailesh B R (India) | Sujith SN (India)
Thisath Thoradeniya (Sri Lanka) | Waseem Ahmed (Pakistan)
What if we were to perform an alternative cartographic exercise upon experiential dimensions of space and time, and ruptures within them? What if we were to orchestrate a letting go of ego-centric seats of power as determiners to accommodate a mobile fulcrum that roams through the margins and ventures into the cracks? What
if we were to execute an exercise that strays away from holistic pretensions to zoom in on microscopic, qualitative descriptions that reveal cross-eyed, short-sighted or
CURATORS NOTE
long-sighted, astigmatic, tactile perspectives that break out of vacant quantifications? A mapping of rituals and taboos, gestures and their decoding, text as meaning and
its vacuity, memory and its erasure, the archive and its fallacy, remembered anecdotes and televised accounts, identities and their discomfiture, religious motifs and their
contemporary inversions, cultural complexes and their annihilation through the autobiographical, history and its reiteration The Lay of the Land: A Work in Progress is
indicative of a desire to chronicle some of these constructs and their collapse.
From the colonial cartographers who dismissed indigenous, non-representational forms of spatial knowledge and the psychogeographies1 of Situationism, to postmodern schizophrenic2 experiments with cartography, the utilitarian and conceptual treatments of maps as ways of charting knowledge or acknowledging the limitations of
that knowledge have always been aesthetic projects. When built upon the notion of two-dimensionally communicating spatial information effectively, they often remain
empty caricatures that extract and canonize physical boundaries and territories as emblems of power and means to authenticate versions of disputed borderlines. In
their most obvious renditions, maps reveal themselves as flat testimonies to the flawed project of objectivity. And what if we zoomed in on these rubrics of territorial
form? We encounter blank spaces peppered with fragments of geographic descriptors empty aesthetic transcriptions, often antiquated iconographic shorthands for
geographic markers, and quantified topographies. The irony remains that despite attempts at harmonious assimilation of parts into a whole, maps are instrumental only
when inferred in parts. In the context of South Asia, with overlapping histories of colonialism, ethnic divisions, communal tensions, marginalization, border disputes, living
indigenous traditions whose needs and demands contest impositions of political power, language politics, and centuries of conquests and border fluidity, maps have been
imposed upon maps. This exhibition rejects the processes that seek to profile region based on geographic descriptors, except through their inversions, and definitive
narratives of political and cultural trauma3 that are generated by carrier agents such as the media, the state, law and others who have the agency to do so.
Lived experiences of spaces inscribed within maps present an entirely different vocabulary of social relations, unfamiliar landscapes, emotional realities, contradictory
testimonies, dialectical narratives, and memories and their particularities. The Lay of the Land, a phrase with origins in connoting the survey of land in its literal sense,
but has folded to signify the general state of affairs or the disposition of circumstances to be studied, allows for the imagination of artists as surveyors capturing vivid,
graphic, glimpses from their own vantage points. And these non-maps do not incorporate canonical aspirations. Nor can they ever be absolute or complete. They are
self-admittedly, a work in progress towards charting lived experiences.
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2
conceptual artists since the 1960s including Claes Oldenberg, Jasper Johns and Nancy Holt.
3
Jeffrey Alexander, in his book Trauma: A Social Theory, uses Benedict Andersons argument in Imagined Communities that nations are imagined on the basis of traumatic events that have affected a collective thereby defining
themselves and other-ing the rest, to emphasize the fundamental argument in his social theory of trauma that trauma needs to be represented. The construction of the traumatic event then becomes instrumental in the way it is
processed by the community, and the construction of these narratives in public memory often falls within the hands of institutions such as the state, law, media and also to an extent the aesthetic.
- ANUSHKA RAJENDRAN
IMRAN CHANNA
Memories Series
Graphite and Eraser on Paper
27 X 41
2015
Memories Series
Graphite and Eraser on Paper
27 X 41
2015
Imran Channa tests the claims to authenticity made by the photographic image. In this series of works, he recreates found photographs in graphite and uses an eraser to peel off the images,
revealing the constructed nature of archives and reportage.
Eraser on Paper IV
Eraser on Paper
52 X 35
2015
Eraser on Paper V
Eraser on Paper
52 X 35
2015
AMNA ILYAS
Mapping
Etching on Perspex (Acrylic)
24 x 22
2015
1981 - 2015
Etching on Perspex (Acrylic)
12 x 8
2015
Untitled
Etching on White Perspex (Acrylic)
10 x 14
2014
Amna Ilyas contemplates text for its formal elements, and the visual and conceptual maps that emerge from it. And its construction as a process of
authenticating knowledge, as part of acts of power that create an illusion of truth, which is by nature ephemeral and transitory. It describes how our
culture is more accustomed to the tone of text rather than its actual formulation. Her works throw light on the auratic effect that texts can hold, and
the various meanings they acquire through the ages; pages from Nasreen Mohamedis diary, whose contents she feels have the same relevance as it
did in her time, inspired 1981- 2015.
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KEDAR DHONDU
The artist captures the little known, unique history of the Konkani speaking community of Siddhis of African origin, brought to Goa as slaves from
the 15th century onwards when it was still under the Portuguese rule. They
are now settled in the district of Yellapur in northern Karnataka, where they
eventually sought refuge.
Dark Dawn
Tea Wash and Gouache on Paper
22 x 60
2015
Dark Dawn
Gouache on Paper
7.5 x 10 (Set of 12)
2015
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SARIKA MEHTA
Passing Through...
Watercolor on Paper
9 x 5
2015
Passing Through...
Watercolor on Paper
9 x 5
2015
The artists interest in geography and its formal pedagogy precipitated in this series of works during her time spent by the sea
in Mumbai where she watched the birds. As they roam, border
territories and manmade boundaries matter to them just as much
as the woven strands of a fishnet, pliable to the slightest tug.
Passing Through...
Watercolor on Paper
9 x 5
2015
Passing Through...
Watercolor on Paper
9 x 5
2015
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SUJITH SN
Stains of Stimuli are emotional maps of places that Sujith SN
has lived in, drawing from his experience of them, and the
impressions they left behind. The vast expanses of sky and
landscape in this series of works evoke various states of mind
and provide the context for the artist to consider the architectural impact upon lived spaces and the power relations
that it signifies. These are visions that come to be triggered
by symbolic representations of terrains. To what extent are
these associations learned and not organic? For the artist,
identity, as it is linked to places is shaped by abstract memories and not easily defined representations of territories. The
more one tries to be specific, tangibility becomes even more
elusive.
Stains of Stimuli
Watercolor on Paper
10 x 12 (each)
2015
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Stains of Stimuli
Watercolor on Paper
45 x 69
2015
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WASEEM AHMED
In this series, Waseem Ahmed continues his delicate use of the miniature style, to explore politically
charged issues and identity. The works remain critical
of the current, often media generated, caricaturing of
the Islamic identity as threatening.
Karachi
Pigment Color, Silver Leaf on Archival Wasli
13 x 10
2015
Untitled
Interfacing Pigment Color, Silver Leaf on Archival Wasli
10 x 14
2015
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Untitled
Pigment Color, Perforation, Silver Leaf on Archival Wasli
21 x 14
2015
Untitled
Pigment Color, Silver Leaf on Archival Wasli
7 x 11
2015
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ADEELA SULEMAN
In this series, Adeela Suleman continues her work with found objects. On porcelain plates,
she maps contemporary contexts by charting a pictorial history of heinous acts from the
past, to indicate that history reiterates itself. This series is part of an ongoing mapping of
our times that she has been involved with over the last year.
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PALA POTHUPITIYE
The artist uses motifs that recur in his works such as the shirt, fishhooks, and decorative
elements from traditional arts to make these imagined maps come alive with Sri Lankas
history of colonization and ethnic tensions, focusing on the cities of Jaffna and Colombo.
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SHAILESH BR
DANUSHKA MARASINGHE
Shailesh BRs sculptures and installations are an extension of his drawings through which he explores the
various possibilities of a concept. The
work Nail Went into Cross is one such
extraction from a larger process. His
works ask questions such as why
an object exists, how it came to be,
its dispositional meaning and what it
will become during its life and after
its death. In this work he traces the
journey of the nail within the larger
political connotations of the crucifixion. He imagines a dissection of the
cross to which Jesus was nailed to reveal the simple yet invisible process
of hammering a nail, and the now invisible hand that hammered the nail.
Trace
Full HD video, 5 min Looped, Color, Sound
2015
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PRADEEP CHANDRASIRI
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35
Untitled
Mixed Media on Paper
23 x 25
2015
Untitled
Rapidograph, Collage on Paper
35 x 25
2015
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The artist is preoccupied by the transient topographies of urban spaces ever climbing
skylines, buildings under construction and the
whir that entwines them. Her abstract works
enmesh these various geographies, often hyperbolically, giving primacy to the experience
of these landscapes and necessarily escape
fidelity to actual architectural spaces.
Untitled
Collage on Paper
8 x 6 each
2015
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Model 1
Balsa Wood, Enamel, Adhesive
12 x 16 x 4
2015
Charmi Gada Shah maps from memory the architectural spaces of the houses that she has
lived in over the years that were testimonies to her personal experiences and subjective
reflections. These painstakingly recreated miniature renditions attempt to transmute the
recent past and personal into experiences of form and space.
Model 2
Balsa Wood, Enamel, Adhesive
4 x 6
2015
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Model 4
Balsa Wood, Plaster, Paint
2015
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THISATH THOREDENIYA
Juggler
Watercolor on Acid Free Archival Paper
8 x 8 inches
2015
Thisath Thoradeniya picks up the figure of the joker, who occupies the margins of society and has
no ostensible relevance except as an entertainer. Yet his comical acts mirror his context, and he
carries its weight while treating it with lightness. The joker becomes an appropriate channel for
the artist to articulate the anxieties stemming from his own personal experiences.
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A New Beginning
Watercolor on Acid Free Archival Paper
8 x 8 inches
2015
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Creeping Out I
Watercolor on Acid Free Archival Paper
16 x 20 inches
2015
Creeping Out II
Watercolor on Acid Free Archival Paper
16 x 20 inches
2015
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Kedar DK (India)
Based out of Goa, the Hyderabadborn Kedar DK studied for his Masters degree in Fine Arts (Painting), at
the Sarojini Naidu School of Performing Arts, Fine Arts and Communication, Hyderabad Central University,
Gachibowli, Hyderabad (2008), and
his Bachelor in Fine Art (Painting),
Goa College of Art, Goa University,
Panaji, 2005. He is the recipient of the
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Shailesh B R (India)
Having studied in two completely diverse artistic pedagogies viz. CAVA,
Mysuru and The Faculty of Fine Arts,
M.S. University of Baroda his artistic practice derives generously from
both. Shailesh BR works towards the
creation of a machine or the mechanical.
My oeuvre is almost a cabinet of curiosities, my studio like a workstation
and laboratory. My formative education and having grown up in a village
where electricity is a distant luxury,
influence my work.
Sujith SN (India)
Sujith SN (1908) was born in Baroda
but grew up in various cities in South
India during a period of rapid urbanization. His practice is informed greatly by these spatial transformations.
He received his BFA from College of
Fine Arts, Trichur, and MFA from the
Sarojini Naidu School of Fine Arts,
Performing Arts and Communication
in the University of Hyderabad.
Paintings) in 2000.
Since 1993, the artist has been extensively exhibiting his works in international museums and galleries in
Australia, Pakistan, India, Japan, UK,
Switzerland, Greece, France, Nepal
and Turkey.
The Mullah is one of my recurrent characters. They are delicately painted like
saints or princes and their expression
is filled with inner peace. Gardens
are another recurrent subject matter
symbolizing visions of paradise and
they are often embellished with fine
calligraphy. Also women wearing the
Burka frequently appear in my work
hinting terrorism and fear. My final
aim is to represent the contradiction
which lies between our life of desires
and the transiency of life.
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about latitude 28
Identifying with its geographical locale in one of the prime art hubs of New Delhi the village of Lado Sarai, the gallery is called
Latitude 28. As the name suggests, the latitude of New Delhi situates it aptly while giving it a global frame of reference. From the
metropolis of New Delhi, Latitude 28 over the years has become synonymous with cutting edge art coming out of the country, seeking out fresh perspectives and innovative thinking in its attempt to stimulate commercial interest in new waves of art-making.
The establishment aims to cultivate a space where collectors and art enthusiasts can interact with emerging artists and their practices. Its strategy allows the space to act as a horizontal environment where younger artists are able to contextualise and reference
their work with the masters of Indian art, even as the ethos of the gallery encourages them to experiment with medium, material
and institutional critique.
The gallery shows veteran artists like Anupam Sud and Baiju Parthan alongside younger, upcoming artists like Prajjwal Choudhury,
Kartik Sood, Anindita Dutta, Dilip Chobisa, Deepjyoti Kalita and Shweta Bhattad. The space maintains an outlook that accommodates South Asian art practices and has neo-miniaturist Pakistani artists like Muhammad Zeeshan and Mohammad Ali Talpur in its
fold. An emphasis on critical thinking and discursive engagement prompts the gallery to accommodate curatorial projects that
weave artworks together to demonstrate the concerns of the curators, and consciously tries to initiate renewed readings of artworks
in various contexts. The most recent example was the exhibition Sacred/Scared curated by cultural theorist and critic Nancy Adajania that interrogated various connotations of the idea of the sacred. Shows that deconstruct established modes of looking at works,
presenting them with renewed relevance and reassess outmoded norms of the white cube, are part of the curatorial agenda.
Latitude 28 recognizes the shift from survey exhibitions and museum displays to international art fairs and biennales, as sites where
dialogues on the contemporary take place. The gallery attempts to support contemporary Indian art not only through exhibitions,
but also by supporting residencies and organizing outreach programs, seminars and talks. Its recent endeavor is a bi-annual residency in collaboration with 1Shanthi road, Bangalore supporting various out-of-the-box initiatives and artists and writers pursuing
experimental work. It also recently supported an outreach initiative, TAKE on Writing Critic Community: Contemporary Art Writing
in India, an initiative by its sister concern, the quarterly art magazine, TAKE on art.
Through these initiatives and many more projects in the horizon, Latitude 28 is still growing as a contemporary art venture, continuing its investment in fresh approaches to contemporary art. Latitude 28s vision is shaped by its Founder/Director, Bhavna Kakar,
who has over a decades experience as a curator, writer, and art consultant.
Latitude 28 supports its sister concern, TAKE on art (www.takeonartmagazine.com) Indias leading contemporary art magazine.
Bhavna Kakar is also the Editor and Publisher of TAKE on art.
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