Where are we
We are pleased to announce our second exhibition in this series - Madhu Das: Where Are We, featuring a body of work based on a public intervention by him in 2014 that has never been shown before. As our days of confinement continue, this project is a nostalgic encounter with public art when such possibilities have been severely affected by the pandemic.
Where Are We, stages an encounter between public space and social structures through surreal visions that explore the mechanisms of power in everyday lives by conflating personal memory and collective history. Madhu Das collected 60 individual sarees from different families around the village (Hiriyur), which were woven together to form a 155 feet long and 25 feet wide quilt which was then hung from the Marikanave Gorge, one of the oldest—initiated in 1855, taking over 10 years to complete—and most capacious man made reservoir in the Asia. Documentation of this site-specific, performative gesture examines craft-making in contemporary practice as visual representation of subject-positions, and consequently interpolated into ideological, political and cultural structures of power. Ostensibly, from a distance, the quilt constitutes a colourful intervention, breaking the 1330 feet length of the dam. The detailed patterns of the quilt also refer to the overlooked texture that often comprises the large picture. Das’s emphasis on detail posits a return to sensitivity towards nuance in mainstream discourses on culture. The dam anchors a community that emerged around it as labour for its construction, as the project prompted the rapid migration of over 5000 workers from Kadappa and Kurnool districts of the Madras Presidency, Poona and surrounding districts. By situating the quilt as a composite cultural fabric of the diverse community that emerged around the Marikanave Gorge, on itself, Das calls into question the tension between the legacy of rapid industrialization and fragile existences that are relocated, and pushed to the shadows of the imposing structure.
Madhu Das (Mumbai/India) his practice is primarily concerned with the projection of identity onto the social and natural world and the way in which the two are woven together in the space. In his work, the human body often establishes an improvisational relationship with objects and sculptural elements in the space. His work involves spaces, in both a narrative sense and as a site of memory, to re-narrate historical events as a way of plotting connections between the particular and the universal. Madhu adapts aspects of material culture and uses methods from anthropology and allegorical fiction as a conceptual tool, exploring linguistic devices and imagery with a sense of irony and paradox.
Recent exhibitions and residencies include: ‘Concrete skies' curated by HH Art Spaces, Serendipity Arts Festival, India; (IN)Sessions, Delfina Foundation, London; Arthur Bunder Press, Chatterjee & Lal, India; Sapporo Tenjinyama Art Studio, Japan; Bamboo Curtain Studio, Taiwan; ‘I am Sutradhar’ curated by Archana Hande The Guild Gallery, India; HH Art Spaces, India; Harvard South Asia Institute, Cambridge, USA; Awaaz Do - A Call to Resistance, curated by Ram Rahman in Times Lit Fest at the Mehbob Studios, India; Venice Biennale - Creative Time Summit with ArtO2 at Studio-X, India; The Conflicted Issue of Change and Urbanism, curated by Gayatri Sinha at Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, India; Sarai Reader 09, curated by Raqs Media Collective at Devi Art Foundation, India; Post-Oil City: The History of the City’s Future, Curated by Elke Falat, Vishweshwaraya Museum, collaboration with Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller, India; Kochi – Muziris Biennale, India; Video Wednesday II, curated by Gayatri Sinha, Gallery Espace, India; G.H. krumbiegel 'whatever he touched he adorned, curated by Suresh Jayaram, Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller, Bengaluru, India; TIFA Working Studios, India; T.A.J. Residency & SKE Projects, India; Theertha International Artists Collective, Sri Lanka and Sandarbh Artist Residency, India.
Madhu was the recipient of the Inlaks Fine Arts Award in 2015 and was selected by Harvard South Asia Institute for the Emerging South Asian Visual Artists Program.
