SECULAR PRACTICE: RECENT ART FROM INDIA

Nalini Malani and Anand Patwardhan

Curator: Peter White ­ Hoopoe Curatorial

Opening on Saturday, November 10 at 5 p.m.
The exhibition runs from November 10 to December 15, 2001

As a participant in the major interdisciplinary project Moving Ideas: A Contemporary Cultural Dialogue with India, organised by Hoopoe Curatorial, Dazibao presents the work of Nalini Malani and Anand Patwardhan, two of India’s foremost contemporary artists working in film and new media. The work of these artists is presented as part of Secular Practice: Recent art from India, an exhibition of nine contemporary artists from India taking place at Dazibao and three other artist-run-centres (La Centrale / Powerhouse, Oboro and Optica).

Using the mediums of film and video installation, Malani and Patwardhan draw public attention through art to issues of social justice, growing religious fundamentalism, the inequities of entrenched class and caste systems, and freedom of expression.

Nalini Malani incorporates theatrical and literary references to bring political and social issues to life. Grounded in a cross-cultural and international context, her video installation Hamletmachine is based on an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet by the German playwright Heiner Mueller. "The famous line ‘to be or not to be’ is expanded into a different kind of soliloquy in Hamletmachine," says Malani, "but it does touch upon the very question of taking action or not, of taking a stand." Projected onto the walls and on a bed of salt on the floor is an image of a Japanese butoh dancer. His body is layered with video footage of the Bombay riots of 1992-93 as well as sounds and images of American cultural imperialism and the fascist era in Europe and Japan. In a parallel to the uncertainty felt by Hamlet, Malani sees a state of national indecisiveness as being responsible for the rise of Hindu fundamentalist power in India.

Anand Patwardhan, one of India’s major documentary filmmakers, has been making films on social and political issues for the past 25 years. Active in the fight for civil liberties, housing rights and communal harmony, Patwardhan describes himself as "a non-serious human being forced by circumstance to make serious films." Patwardhan has been effective at reaching a wide public through both the screening of his work in local communities and its broadcast on television, often obtaining court injunctions to do so.

The two works in this exhibition were made in the format of music videos. We are Not Your Monkeys (1996) is a powerful assertion of the rights of India’s dalits or untouchables, those at the bottom of the Hindu system of caste, and a searing condemnation of the reality of social hierarchy in a country in which caste is officially not supposed to exist. Ribbons for Peace (1998) is a call for peace made in response to India’s detonation of a nuclear device. Both these works are in keeping with Patwardhan’s objective of making issues known outside the immediate cultural sphere. Intended for public broadcast, Ribbons for Peace was seen on MTV India.

Moving Ideas: A Contemporary Cultural Dialogue with India is organised by Hoopoe Curatorial and presented in Montreal in co-operation with Cargo Productions. This four-year interdisciplinary project is taking place in Calcutta, India, and in Canada in Montreal, Toronto, London, and Vancouver. The Montreal component presents exhibitions, public forums and film screenings including Anand Patwardhan’s newest film Jung aur Aman / War and Peace (2001) November 23, 7:30 p.m. at J.A. De Sève Theatre, Concordia University. The program also includes two of Patwardhan’s earlier documentaries Bombay: Our City (1985), November 24, 1 p.m. and Father, Son and Holy War (1995), November 25, 1 p.m.

The filmmaker will be present at the screenings.

Nalini Malani was born in Karachi, Pakistan (then India), in 1946. She graduated from the J.J. School of Art in Bombay in 1969 and received fine arts scholarships from the French and Indian Government to study in Paris and in the USA. Initially known as a painter, her more recent work with interdisciplinary video installation has earned her wide recognition. Her video works include: City of Desires (1992); Mediamaterial (1994); Memory: record/erase (1996); Remembering Toba Tek Singh (1998-99). Hamletmachine (1999-2000) was made as part of a six-month residency at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan. It was exhibited earlier this year at the Tate Modern in London. Nalini Malani has exhibited extensively abroad. She lives in Mumbai, India.

Anand Patwardhan was born in 1950. He received a BA in English Literature from Bombay University in 1970, studied sociology at Brandeis and earned a Masters Degree in Communications from McGill University in 1982. An activist for many years, he participated in the anti-Vietnam war movement as a student in the USA. He was a volunteer in Cesar Chavez’s United Farmworkers Union, and in Kishore Bharati, a rural development and education project in central India. He has fought against unjust, unsustainable development such as the Narmada Dam. Patwardhan’s award winning films include: Prisoners of Conscience (1978); A Time to Rise (1981) made with the National Film Board of Canada; Bombay our City (1985); In Memory of Friends (1990); In the Name of God (1992); Father, Son and Holy War (1994); Narmada Diary (1995). Anand Patwardhan’s films have been widely screened and honoured. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Hoopoe Curatorial is a collective that includes Phinder Dulai, a poet and journalist in Vancouver, and Peter White, an independent writer and curator living in Montreal. London (Ontario) artist Jamelie Hassan was a founding member of the group. The group derives its name from the Hoopoe, a migratory bird that travels between India and the West. In India the Hoopoe is commonly found in parks, gardens and wooded areas and is associated with tranquillity and peace.