There is no one way of seeing or knowing, hence one feels the urgency of laying down a few pointers in random/skewed order like the pieces of a puzzle for those who wish to rearrange them and keep adding something of their own to fill in the ‘gaps’…
In/Visible is an evocation of a sensual poetics of the female body.
No singular entity, this body represents an amalgam of ‘loci’; or in other words, various intersections of time-space-natural/built ecology/norm, each of which continuously co-inscribe each other. As such, it would be safe to say, this body can be seen as an emerging, unstable entity.
Through the co-text of ‘absence made visible’ by clothes worn by women that veil the physical/essential body from view, these visual objects are released into the subjective-affective realm. By association and reminiscence via shared experience, these objects speak of historical/inter-generational trauma and repression by turning bodies inside out and holding up the interior in plain sight.
The stitches and incisions performed on the ‘bodies’ of the works signal an attempt at couching them in a cultural context (Nakshikantha). However, the sheer inadequacy of language/s (across its sprawling gamut) problematizes the efforts to grasp the complex processes of ‘being with understanding’. And one is nudged towards responding with emotions/feelings.
The vignettes staged across the visible space/s conspire to dismantle the idea of rationalized, rehearsed bodies by proposing potential slippages towards that which lurks subliminally at the fringes of our conscious numbness.
Defamiliarized in appearance, these objects shape-shift with the movement of the ‘gazer’, who, at the same time transits through various modes of engagement with the surrounding—this interacting nexus of bodies-space-structure and the ensuing dialectical network becomes the actual creative ground for re-inventing the visual objects and our own body-self/agency.
Sharmillie Rahman
Curator