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Barbed Floss
Curated by Veeranganakumari Solanki
The Guild
31 July –
30 September,
2013
Tayeba Begum Lipi | Mahbubur Rahman | Promotesh
Das Pulak | Molla Sagar | Anisuzzaman Sohel
Borders on land are made up of barbed wire
fencing and high walls, extreme military security, extreme
emotional insecurity. The word floss behaves as a thorough
cleanser with a fine thread, which removes, cleanses and frees
blockages.
‘Barbed Floss’ conjures the anti-thesis of
these two aspects, contradicting and creating new notions
associated with these two terms. The border between India and
Bangladesh has a 3,406 km. barbed wire fence that was recently
completed to prevent immigration. These borders between
countries are implied by and to people where issues of
understanding, conversation and migration are discussed in view
of relationships, nature, exchange and employment. The river
water changes territory, and the waters drift through
undisputed; raw elements pass in and out while the barbed winds
floss the skies overhead.
In this exhibition, five artists of Bangladeshi
origin explore issues of space, borders, territory, medium,
politics and disputed solutions. Each artist has a strong
individual reflection of issues related to the notion of ‘Barbed
Floss’ and express it through their use of medium and renewed
association with their personal experiences, histories and
country.
Tayeba Begum Lipi’s work – ‘From 1.7 million
mi² To 55,598 mi²’ – a series of four circular panels framed
in razor blades, sear separation, partitions and memories. The
subcontinent with a land mass of 1.7 million sq. miles, is
dissected into maps of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. The
hallucination and desires of unity and oneness are things of the
past. The artist recalls – “When I was a child, I used to hear
about THOSE HAPPY DAYS from my parents while the inhabitant from
different beliefs and perspectives used to live together happily
in one large land.” The happiness was an unselected political
option against those of homelessness, refugees and unrest.
Lipi’s four etched maps on mirror polished stainless-steel
plates, create a scratched and wounded reflection of the viewers
who are survivors or an aftermath of partitions, borders and
barbed fences.
Borders in any land scratch the land itself.
Mahbubur Rahman’s works depict this pressure created by man-made
systems of divisions that plug the natural flow of human
relationships, communication and understanding. Borders
themselves inherently have the quality of unusual movement that
politically fluctuate social understanding amongst harmonious
communities and pre-existing neighbourhoods. Rahman grew up in
an older part of Dhaka that had the most interactive
neighbourhoods where people of different religions happily
resided in its architectural beauty. “In my childhood I used to
hang out with my friends from one para (certain area with one
society) to another para visiting all the old buildings, amongst
which, some were abandoned and some badly maintained. People
used to call these abandoned houses ‘enemy properties’. I
wondered why they were called ‘enemy properties’...they did not
belong to the anti Bangladeshi’s but Bangali Hindu communities
before the 1971 war.” Suffocated and pressurised by borders,
claustrophobia similar to type in operation theatres, creation
of borders through barbed fences, visas, immigration and
passports the artist creates sculptures out of stainless-steel
scissors that depict the dissection and pressure of the spirit
of freedom, while constantly protecting oneself and being on
guard.
To deal “loudly with the heights and frights of
political civilisation”, Anisuzzaman Sohel has created a series
of mixed media works that include reflections of his own
appearance to depict the projection of being a first-hand victim
of the spoken partition. Describing his works as an “interior
monologue”, the artist juxtaposes the sharp and the fine, the
flowers with the daggers and clichés the freedom of birds with
barbed wires. Sohel ploys beauty with brute, existing yet
struggling unresolved at any given instance. His relationship
with his works and imagination is a permeable border between
hypo and hyper, real and surreal.
The borders in the sub-continent were drawn with
the first partition of 1947. In 1971, after the second partition
and Bangladesh’s independence, the non-permeable
Indo-Bangladeshi barrier was created. This barbed fence wire is
considered to be the fifth longest border in the world.
Ethnicities, communities, houses were all partitioned and
allotted different nationalities, depending on which side of the
political borders they fell.
“To drag a line, to separate, the barbed wire
went across the middle of the green field, road, yard and even
the middle of the house in some areas. But the people who have
the same blood flowing through their vein (and vain), have the
same provisions, mounting up in the same area and lived
simultaneously for thousands of years...how can a border
separate them being together? Is it possible to divide with a
boundary marker?!” Promotesh Das Pulak’s installation of ‘Twins’
in an incubator, created out of the beautiful white shoal
flowers, depicts the betrayal of innocence and beauty
through rules and laws that destroyed faith and togetherness
unblinkingly. The position of the twins inside the incubator
acts as a vulnerable metaphor of sharing food, oxygen and
physical attributions. This work alludes to the notion of
partition, division and separation in marked territories that
once shared similar histories, cultures and identities.
‘Borders, the name of politics’; by Molla
Sagar is the story of Bijoy Sircar, a well-known bard of Bengal,
who was unable to let go of his affinity towards his land and
people. In 1947 – post partitions – he decided to stay behind in
East Bengal, which later came to be known as Bangladesh. “The
relationship of the soul that exists between each of us, was
deepened by his songs. Ten million people took shelter in our
neighbouring India in 1971. However, the expectation this man
had from Bangladesh post 1971 independence, his notion of this
nation, was estranged after 1974. Bijoy Sarkar had to leave this
country. While leaving his motherland, he sung on. In the song,
is captured the emptiness felt by all the people of this world,
leaving their home lands for the unknown.” Sagar recreates this
in his video through a performance of Bijoy Sircar’s ‘Bichchhedi
Gaan’ (Songs of Estrangement), which was a plea to remove
from our minds and souls the fencing wires of laws and borders.
The works in this exhibition are homage to the
resonating hollow cry beyond politics, beyond countries, beyond
continents; across borders and over wires into freedom, peace
and harmony to floss homes, families, oceans, fields, land and
skies.
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Veeranganakumari Solanki (b.
1985) is an independent curator and art-writer; based in Mumbai,
India. She studied English Literature; and holds post-graduate
diplomas in Indian Aesthetics; Art Criticism and Theory; as well
as a Masters in History. Her curatorial experience has involved
research, curating and writing for several art publications and
journals on emerging Indian, Asian and international artists and
art practices; in India as well as internationally. Solanki was
a participant of the first Gwangju Biennale International
Curators’ course, and has curated and co-curated exhibitions in
India as well as internationally. She has been appointed as a
jury member of the 8th edition of the Arte Laguna
Prize and is the recipient of the first illySustainArt Curator’s
prize (2011) and the 1st Annual ALICE (Artistic Landmark in
Contemporary Experience) Public’s Voice Award 2012 for best
Emerging Curator.
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