STATIC IN THE AIR
Installation view of Growing like a Tree: Static In The Air, curated by Sohrab Hura at Ishara Art Foundation, 2021. Image courtesy of the artists and Ishara Art Foundation. Photography by Ismail Noor / SeeingThings.
Ishara Art Foundation presents Growing Like A Tree curated by Sohrab Hura, an exhibition that looks at regional histories of image-making through a visual and sonic excavation of place, memory and culture.
Referencing the interconnected spheres of contemporary artistic practice, this show considers photography as a locus in an expanded field of art that includes videos, books and sound installations. Hura’s individual and collective journeys through photography and moving image over the years have presented both a form of rooting and uprooting of places as markers of identity. Through this exhibition, he maps a network of past and present collaborators with 14 artists and collectives from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Germany, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Singapore, seeking to expand the framework of boundaries set out by the geographical context of South Asia. Together they create a space where multiple voices and experiences are brought into dialogue with one another, capturing dualities in which organic growth is matched with resource extraction, the archival is juxtaposed with the contemporary, and the magic of the mundane is seen through children’s eyes.
The ensemble of artists and collectives in the exhibition includes Aishwarya Arumbakkam, Anjali House, Bunu Dhungana, Farah Mulla, Jaisingh Nageswaran, Katrin Koenning, Munem Wasif, Nida Mehboob, Nepal Picture Library, Reetu Sattar, Sarker Protick, Sathish Kumar, Sean Lee, Yu Yu Myint Than, and a citation of Dayanita Singh along with site-specific interventions by Sohrab Hura.