BHAVNA KAKAR PRESENTS “SLIPPING THROUGH THE CRACKS” @ LATIT

BHAVNA KAKAR PRESENTS “SLIPPING THROUGH THE CRACKS” @ LATIT

Postby Surabhi Trivedi » Fri Jan 20, 2012 7:43 am

New Delhi: Bhavna Kakar presents “Slipping through the cracks”, a group show curated by Meera Menezes and featuring artworks by Atul Bhalla, Shreyas Karle, Hemali Bhuta, Baptist Coelho, Mithu Sen, Jagannath Panda, Anita Dube, Prajjwal Chowdhury, Sheba Chhachhi, Raqs Media Collective and Archana Hande, at Latitude 28, F-208, Old MB Road, Lado Sarai, New Delhi, from January 22, 2012 till February 22, 2012, 11.m. to 7 p.m. Phone @ 46791111

Says Bhavna Kakar, Director, Latitude 28: ““Slipping through the cracks” invites a clutch of eleven artists to examine the phenomenon of leakage and loss in both the virtual and the real worlds. Are there perhaps cracks/ fissures/ruptures in the political, social or gender fabric?”

Says curator Meera Menezes: “The show is an attempt at investigating the systemic erasure that accompanies a dizzying accumulation of information in an increasingly digitalized and virtual world. The exhibition dwells on the mechanisms of this erasure and the deeper ramifications when people and historical events get swallowed up by the cracks of memory and history.”

While some vignettes of information go viral, enjoying an unimaginable circulation, others languish for want of a digital trace. What transpires when a Google or Wiki search fails to throw up any mention of bygone moments in history? Do they cease to
exist simply because they leave no digital footprint or are no longer referenced and are consequently lost forever to posterity?

Ironically however this erasure seems to go hand in hand with the harnessing of new and sophisticated technologies to map the world around us. These catalogue every move of ours using techniques ranging from fingerprinting to biometrics. Are there ways to slip through the cracks of the surveillance systems?

The artists 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 this in-between-ness that the cracks offer.

For instance, Baptist Coelho’s installation, Remind The Forgotten, made with carpet, newsprint paper and nylon thread, incorporates newspaper articles which have been randomly swept under a carpet. Says Coelho: “On November 26th, 2008, the world
was shocked to learn of the urban terrorism that transformed the city of Mumbai. Media technology allowed the tragedy to be documented and transmitted around the world as it unfolded. Time has passed, and the installation reflects on the power of the media to shape and influence current events; as well as our ability to forget. The reveal from one corner of the carpet reminds us of our human frailties; that with the desire to move on with life, we tend to forget the pain and suffering of the past.

Says Hemali Bhuta of her work titled Running Stitch made with 19 pieces of perforated note pads and binding cloth: “The work that I propose for the show would entail a number of blank note pads with perforations of sorts, from closely stitched dots to more spaced out ones to the ones that decline the possibility of being able to tear easily…These notepads would be mounted onto the wall in a horizontal linear formation…This to do with the notion of being in trishankhu position…that of unease…that of suspension between heaven and earth…when you confront true freedom, when one has to encounter open spaces, without borders, without security, without distinction, without groups, without belonging, without gender, without text, without thoughts. Here perforations are treated as dotted lines, dashes lines, lines interspersed with variation in spaces in-between… It’s the same unease of being unable to possess or delete that space, that fed data, that important recording…allowing you to detach yourself from the comfort zone…”

Raqs Media Collective’s two sculptural installations titled Proverbs In Dark Light have terse epigrams on time and power that are read off two larger than life tablets incised with light. As the light between them changes, the epigrams take on new meanings. Power and time become malleable, open to new readings.

Shreyas Karle’s work titled Loose, a set of 11 works in archival print on unused paper, is about his childhood memories. Says Karle: “I have two theories. The first is that I remember tearing pages of my school notebooks, just because I did not like the handwriting on that page or there were too many cancellations or just that page was not needed. The school notebooks now are replaced by sketchbooks/visual-diaries, but the result is the same. My diaries try to maintain a visual balance by sacrificing useless pages. All these torn pages leave their traces behind. The second theory is that the excitement of using a new book always overtakes the finishing of an earlier to its last page. The last blank pages are destined to die virgin either by subjected to shredding or been eaten away by silver ants. The weight of these few left naked pages hardly matters in comparison to the appeal of the new book. Both these theories have left behind a bunch of loose papers that do not reflect anything but themselves. The papers used in this work document and archive their ownselves. Acting as a frame to their own images they contradict the emptiness they talk about.”
Surabhi Trivedi
 
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