Conversation between Ina Puri & Shahidul Alam.
Against all odds and not with standing the turbulent political crisis across our nations, we were able to go ahead and exhibit Shahidul Alam’s brilliant and edgy ‘Kalpana’s Warriors’ in New Delhi, a while ago. In every which way this was a show that threw many a challenge. According to specific instructions from the activist-photojournalist we had darkened the space and the interiors of the gallery were illuminated with candles, their flickering light casting long shadows on the walls. The atmosphere created was deliberately dramatic and desolate. As the viewers gathered, in solemn silence looking at the portraits and writings on the wall, we read from Kabita Chakma’s ode to Kalpana Chakma, bringing her presence alive. In Chakma dialect, Rosy1 read out the lines that resonated with the sober mood in the room. While we did not understand her words, her tone was evocative and poignant, Kalpana’s last message before she went missing.
To share with those who could not view the show, here are a few probes and responses that Shahidul Alam and Ina Puri exchanged, especially for the readers of TAKE on art. The images are from the current showing of ‘Kalpana’s Warriors’ at Autograph ABP in London from where it travels to Argentina and other places.
Ina Puri (IP): There is an elegiac mood to this show, Shahidul; a deep sense of melancholia. Unlike the other exhibitions you have curated or participated in, ‘Kalpana’s Warriors’ began with a painful premise. Kalpana had gone missing and the worst was expected. Your views?
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July - December 2016-Ausgabe von TAKE on art.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July - December 2016-Ausgabe von TAKE on art.
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Complete Love
It’s 2011, late summer. All over Europe, young people are occupying central public squares to demonstrate for more social justice. In Berlin, their agenda is different. The completists gathered at Alexanderplatz aspire for justice primarily on an intimate level. They believe that only when the redistribution of material wealth includes equal chances of finding sex and love — no matter how elderly, disabled, or ugly you are — communism will become real.
Delicate Animals
The humidity is sabotage and my skin is undone. I’ve always had a preference for dryness. While other women fear wrinkles, I never mind the beginnings of a crease. They seem cleaner, those intersecting lines. But then I’ve never been afraid of getting older, of being an abstraction.
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why do artists write on art?
once, there were newspaper reviews. they connected art writing to the artist and to an audience, with immediacy.
A Writer's Discourse
There are two moments in Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus that I come back to often. The first is an epitaph that Socrates uses to explain bad writing, which he recites (and I will now quote) in full:
The Smuggler: A Mural By Sadequain
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Ghosts Of Ghan-Town
Landing gracefully on a rock, the camel tucked in its wings And wondered if this was perhaps Miryam Springs? This parched and desolate landscape was not what he hoped to find What of the flourishing settlement he had once left behind?
Kerala Boy
The Kerala boy stands alone, facing the sea or what looks like the sea. Water is never far from his feet. His eyes are dark and his hair is blacker than the best Tellicherry pepper. He is an inch taller than most and a little long in the tooth. He likes the language of protest. He likes the flavour of a season called ‘Left’.
Fictioning The Landscape: Robert Smithson And Ruins In Reverse
That zero panorama seemed to contain ruins in reverse, that is – all the new construction that would eventually be built. This is the opposite of the ‘romantic ruin’ because the buildings don’t fall into ruin after they are built but rather rise into ruin before they are built. –Robert Smithson, “A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey”
