Video courtesy India Art Fair
Born into a family marked by the traumatic memories of displacement during the Partition of India in 1947, my artistic exploration delves into the intricate relationship between present experiences and past trauma. I navigate this terrain by delving into inter-generational memories, inherited family archives, and the elusive quest for a sense of belonging or home.
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Spanning across mediums such as paper weaving, photography, performance, installations, drawings, and video, my work conceptualizes the idea of 'the body as a memory collector'- body as a repository of memories and a site of post-memorial reconstruction. I utilize paper weaving as a metaphorical process, intertwining the warp of past memories with the weft of contemporary existence to interrogate notions of identity and existence fabric. The resulting visual language is fragmented, pixelated, and obscured. I see this language as a metaphor to speak for the forgotten and lost narratives.
Core of my practice lies on the exploration of personal histories often overshadowed by institutional narratives. Preserved within my family's archive since the partition and their migratory journey are poems, photographs, documents, letters, telegrams, postcards, oral histories, and travelogues by my grandparents and parents. Through staged photography and mise-en-scène, I endeavor to decolonize these memories, reshaping their narratives and reclaiming agency over our collective history.
I critically analyze the politics of sociopolitical identity, recognizing its nuanced shaping and occasional dismissal by history. I seek my work to serve as a platform where personal and institutional memories converge, each holding equal significance.