This Must Be True by Khoj International Artists' Association

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28 January - 28 February 2019 Khoj Studios Opening 6:30pm, 28 January 2019

This Must Be True

Ala Younis, Bani Abidi, Lawrence Abu-Hamdan, Pallavi Paul, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Sahil Naik, SUPERFLEX, Susan Schuppli, Zuleikha Chaudhari + Khoj curated by Mario D’Souza, Mila Samdub and Radha Mahendru

In 2017, Khoj staged a hearing titled ‘Landscape as Evidence: Artist as Witness’, developed in collaboration with artist Zuleikha Chaudhari. Hoping to provide alternatives to established social, political, and economic narratives, the hearing presented art as evidence and artists as witnesses in a simulated court of law. Opening with a video of these proceedings, This Must Be True complicates the very act of witnessing in the collapsing gulf between law and aesthetics. Our curatorial enquiry locates itself in the disquiet of the strange shifts our worlds are undergoing. In the tangle of surveillance, big data, algorithms, and post-truth politics, we continually produce, document, and archive ourselves as consenting and unwitting subjects. This Must Be True questions the delight, revulsion, anxiety, and conviction in our practices of mass witnessing. In the world and in the exhibition space, we are implicated in the twin acts of spectatorship and participation. From spaces of stillness and action, the works in the exhibition posit witnesses that are romantic, non-sentient, voyeuristic, under threat, incarcerated.

Ala Younis Pat– riot – against the slow cancellation of the future Stereoviewers, plastic, inkjet prints, paper, and metal 2018

Ala Younis’s Pat – riot – against the slow cancellation of the future is based on two historic incidents. Developing from the iconic film evidence of the bread riots in Egypt and radio reports in Jordan following the entry of refugees from Iraq in 1990, Ala Younis creates a ‘stereoscopic’ study concerned with the abetment of riots and civic disorder examined through the devices of rumours, bureaucratic leaks, manipulation of public opinion and prejudiced ‘truth’. Younis’s project assesses the images streamed through mobile cameras and televised mass demonstrations in Egypt, including the way social media feeds perform a kind of algorithmic terror by constructing new conduits for bigotry.

Bani Abidi Memorial to Lost Words Sound and sculptural installation, 8 channel audio, 25 marble slabs with engraved text, installation 2017–2018

In memory of more than a million Indian soldiers who served in World War I, but are remembered – if ever – only for their valour and loyalty to the crown. Bani Abidi draws on the censored letters written by soldiers on the front and the songs sung by their female relatives pleading with them not to leave. Speaking through the words of the contemporary poet Amarjit Chandan, Memorial to Lost Words is an ephemeral memorial and resurrection of this barely-remembered history. The work was originally commissioned for the Edinburgh Arts Festival 2016.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan Saydnaya (the missing 19db) Listening room, sound, 12m 48s 2017

Over 13,000 people have been executed in the Syrian prison of Sayndaya, since the protests erupted in 2011. Located 25 kilometres north of Damascus, the notorious Assad-regime prison is inaccessible to independent observers and monitors. In 2016, Lawrence Abu Hamdan worked with Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture to produce an acoustic investigation into the prison’s gross violations of human rights. The memory of the few that were released from the prison was the only resource available to learn of and document what went on inside. The capacity of detainees to see anything in Saydnaya was highly restricted as they were mostly kept in darkness, blindfolded or made to cover their eyes. As a result, the prisoners developed an acute sensitivity to sound. Saydnaya (the missing 19db) is a listening room that demonstrates the levels of whispers before and after 2011. The work was first commissioned by the 13th Sharjah Biennial.

Pallavi Paul Attempts, Incitements, Etc Installation with sound, sculptural text, and images 2019

The weave of the ‘secret’ thickens under each examination. Whether public or private it provokes vision, memory and speech at once. What can be remembered must not be said, what is said can never be seen. Attempts, Incitements, Etc enters the terrain of deferred attestation via the Official Secrets Act. The premise for its play are the recollections of former code breakers, radio mechanics, typists, and teleprinting machine operators working at Bletchley Park around World War II. Wartime signatories of this Act have since been freed from the obligations of holding information that was considered confidential by the state. The secrets trapped in these crumbling bodies and minds have now become ‘un-official’ and memory regains its alchemic charge. Even as the spectre of the ‘Official Secret’ continues to loom over us and is repeatedly resurrected as terror and frenzy – playing with deceased secrets can perhaps be an opening into a new time. A time where silence can float like a question.

Level of Confidence commemorates the mass kidnapping of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa normalista school in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. The project consists of a face-recognition camera that has been trained to tirelessly look for the faces of the disappeared students. The system uses algorithms to find which student’s facial features look most like those of the person in front of the camera and gives a ‘level of confidence’ on how accurate the match is, in a percentage. The biometric surveillance algorithms used – Eigen, Fisher and LBPH – are typically used by military and police forces to look for suspicious individuals whereas in this project they are used to search for victims instead. The piece will always fail to make a positive match, as the students were likely murdered and burnt in a massacre where government, police forces, and drug cartels were involved. The commemorative side of the project, however, is the relentless search for the students and the overlap of their image with the public’s own facial features.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Level of Confidence Face-recognition algorithms, computer, screen, webcam 2015

Sahil Naik Ground Zero Wooden structure, cement, hand cut bricks, wood, metal, fiberglass, buff board, corrugated sheets, wires, tiles, plaster of Paris and other miscellaneous materials Video, 1m 50s 2016-2017

In Ground Zero, Sahil Naik creates modelled replications of familiar locations and subjects them to handmade improvised miniature explosions, thereby destroying the model he originally made. Slipping barely perceptibly between video of the real studio, with people walking about it in, video of the destruction of the scale model, and the physical presence of the destroyed model in the exhibition space, the work pushes at the logic of conventional structures of evidence. The work reflects on the vulnerability of our everyday spaces against the way we usually imagine terror being at a distance from us. In a time when deepfakes are causing political disruption, and with our increasing comfort viewing, sharing, and disseminating images of violence, the remains of the studio may be a site from which to rethink the roles we play as witnesses.

Kwassa Kwassa, which translates to ‘unstable boat’, portrays the construction of a boat on the island of Anjouan, in the Comoro archipelago between Madagascar and Mozambique. Although usually used for fishing, the boat will also find use transporting migrants to the neighbouring island of Mayotte, a French overseas territory and the outermost region of the EU. Over 10,000 people have died attempted the 70 km crossing. Carrying more than symbolic meaning as a container for dreams of reaching a better life on the other shore, the boat is also a labour-intensive work of craftsmanship and the physical vessel that carries humans on a perilous voyage.

SUPERFLEX Kwassa Kwassa Video with sound 17m 2015

Susan Schuppli Slick Images and Nature Represents Itself Slick Images: Satellite imagery, Public Lab aerial photography, BP Houston Command Center animation, and an underwater video feed. Nature Represents Itself: Oil film simulation of hydrocarbon compositions and behaviour from the initial surface slick and deep subsurface plumes resulting from the Deepwater Horizon spill. HD video loop, colour with stereo sound, 6m 27s. Exhibited in conjunction with spoken-word audio, 33m 2018

On April 20, 2010, the exploratory drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, operating in the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, exploded and sank resulting in the death of 11 workers and the largest oil spill in the history of marine drilling operations. Susan Schuppli presents media evidence emerging from the spill and its aftermath including audio detailing the lawsuit filed on behalf of the rights of nature against BP. Her multi-part Slick Images and a computer generated oil spill simulation Nature Represents Itself uses diverse media to study the 2010 incident as a form of “natural cinema” with its origins in petroleum production. Schuppli views the incident from multiple perspectives, making varied layers visible. In the photogenic image of dazzling colours, Schuppli presents the oil film in its aesthetic and legal forms to propose the ecological site as a material witness fully capable of representing its own damaged condition.

Zuleikha Chaudhari and Khoj Landscape as Evidence: Artist as Witness Video Documentation of live performance Two-channel video 2018 Documentation by Blue Ant Digital Video edited by Radha Mahendru

Since 2016, Zuleikha and Khoj have been engaged in an ongoing conversation about the possibilities of bridging the adjacent methodologies of art and law as a way to consider the merit of an artist’s practice as a way of making sense of precarious contemporary conditions globally. Conceived by Khoj International Artist’s Association and Zuleikha Chaudhari in collaboration with Anand Grover, Landscape as Evidence: Artist as Witness takes the form of a staged hearing. Asking how we measure loss, the project premises art as possible legal evidence and artists as witnesses. In the first iteration of the project, developed with Navjot Altaf, Ravi Agarwal and Sheba Chhachhi, the petitioners, Zuleikha Chaudhari and Khoj, opposed the then recently cleared River Linking Project on the basis of the devastation caused to the environment. The hearing was staged at the Constitution Club of India on 7th April 2017 with Honourable Justice Yatindra Singh, lawyers – Anand Grover and Norma Alvares, and artists – Navjot Altaf, Ravi Agarwal, and Sheba Chhachhi. A second hearing was recently convened at the Old GMC Complex in Goa with artists Kedar Dhondhu and Vishal Rawlley as a part of Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa.

Ala Younis (b. 1974) is an artist, researcher, and curator who explores the formation of the modern Arab world and the potential for renewed thought and action the era continues to inspire. Younis’ work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville (2018); Art Jameel Project Space, Dubai (2018); Delfina Foundation, London (2010, 2018); MMAG Foundation, Amman (2017) and Darat al Funun, Amman (2009). Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions at ifa-Galerie, Berlin and Stuttgart (2018); CCS Bard, Annandale-on-Hudson, US (2017); Akademie der Künste, Berlin (2017); Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo (2017); 4th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Yekaterinburg, Russia (2017); Bani Abidi (b. 1971) is a Pakistani contemporary Marta Herford, Herford, artist whose work focuses on political issues in the Germany (2017); Solomon colonial and post-colonial South Asian contexts. R. Guggenheim Museum, Her early engagement with video, beginning at the New York (2016); 56th Art Institute of Chicago, led to the incorporation Venice Biennale (2015); KW of performance and photography into her work. Institute, Berlin (2015); New These mediums have provided Abidi with potent, Museum, New York (2014); sometimes subversive, means to address problems Meeting Points 7, Cairo, Hong of nationalism, specifically those surrounding the Kong, Beirut (2014); Instituto Indian-Pakistani conflict and the violent legacy of Valenciano de Arte Moderno, the 1947 partition dividing the two countries and Valencia, Spain (2013); 2012 their uneven representation in the mass media. She New Museum Triennial, New is particularly interested in how these issues affect York (2012); 9th Gwangju everyday life as well as individual experiences. Biennial (2012); Her work is in With a distinct sense of irony and satire, she has the collections of Art Jameel, produced artworks exploring private and public Dubai and Jeddah; Barjeel spaces through a complex critique of the social Art Foundation, Sharjah; and the political. She has showcased her work at Guggenheim Museum, New as many as 80 shows worldwide, more recently York and Darat al Funun, at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (2017), Kunsthas Amman, among others. Ala Hamburg (2016), Gandhara Art Space, Karachi Younis currently lives in (2016), Experimenter Gallery, Kolkata (2016), Amman. Dallas Contemporary, Dallas (2015), Kunstverein Arnsberg, Germany (2014), and DOCUMENTA-13 (2012). Solo exhibitions of Abidi’s work have been presented at the Baltic Center for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom (2011); and Experimenter, Kolkata (2012–13). Abidi’s work features in the collections of The Guggenheim has acquired three works by Abidi. Bani Abidi lives in Berlin and Karachi.

Artist Bios

Pallavi Paul (b. 1987) works primarily with video and installation to propose orders of tensility that inhabit non-fiction material. Her work deeply engages in the technologies of poetry and time travel. Testing the contours of fantasy, resistance, politics, and history, her work explores the relationships between truth making and world making. Paul’s work has been shown at the AV festival, Newcastle, UK (2018), Contour Biennale, Mechelen, Belgium (2017), Garage Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2017), Cinema Zuid, Antwerp, Belgium (2017), Open Source Festival, London, UK (2015), Edinburgh Art Festival, Bhaudaji Lad Museum, Mumbai, India (2016), Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2015), and Tate Modern (project space), London, UK (2013) among other spaces. Pallavi’s films have also been shown in film festivals like Mumbai Film Festival (2018), Theatre for Experiments in New Technologies, Kolkata, India (2015), Experimenta, Bangalore, India (2013), and Hundred Years of Experimentation (19132013) Retrospective of Indian Cinema and Video, Mumbai, India (2013). She has been an artist in Residence at Delfina Foundation, London (2014), Vancouver Biennale, Canada (2014), and KHOJ Intl. Artists’ Association, New Delhi, India (2013). Paul is also the recipient of several prestigious fellowships including Charles Wallace India Trust, Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation fellowship for emerging Indian Artists, India Foundation for the Arts, Public Service Broadcasting Trust Fellowship for non-fiction film, and pad.ma fellowship for experimental video. Pallavi Paul is a PhD candidate at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, she lives and works in Delhi.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan (b. 1985) is an artist and audio investigator. Abu Hamdan’s interest with sound and its intersection with politics originate from his background as a touring musician and facilitator of DIY music. The artist’s audio investigations have been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and as advocacy for organisations such as Amnesty International and Defence for Children International. The artist’s forensic audio investigations are conducted as part of his research for Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths College London where he received his PhD in 2017. Recent solo exhibitions have shown at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Maureen Paley, London (2017); Portikus, Frankfurt (2016); Kunsthalle St. Gallen (2015); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2014); The Showroom, London (2012) among others. Additionally his works have been exhibited and performed at institutions and international events such as Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2017); Contour Biennale, Mechelen, Belgium (2017); MACBA, Barcelona, Spain (2017); Moderna Museet, Stockolm, Sweden (2017); Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2016); 9th Liverpool Biennial, UK (2016); The Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2016); Beirut Art Center (2015); The Shanghai Biennial (2014); and Tate Modern, London, UK (2013), among others. His works are part of collections at MoMA, Guggenheim, Van AbbeMuseum, Centre Pompidou and Tate Modern. Abu Hamdan was the recipient of the Abraaj Group Prize and the Baloise Art Prize (both 2018). Lawrence Abu Hamdan lives and works in Beirut.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (b. 1967) is an electronic artist, who develops interactive installations that are at the intersection of architecture and performance art. His main interest is in creating platforms for public participation, by perverting technologies such as robotics, computerized surveillance or telematic networks. He recently had solo exhibitions at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2018), the MUAC Museum in Mexico City (2015), and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney (2011). Lozano-Hemmer has also shown at Art Biennials and Triennials in Havana, Istanbul, Kochi, Liverpool, Montréal, Moscow, New Orleans, Seville, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney and was the first artist to represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale in 2007. Collections holding his work include the MoMA in New York, Tate in London, AGO in Toronto, CIFO in Miami, Jumex in Mexico City, DAROS in Zurich, Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul, MUAC in Mexico City, 21st Century Museum of Art in Kanazawa, ZKM in Karlsruhe, and SAM in Singapore, among others. He has received numerous awards including two BAFTA British Academy Awards for Interactive Art in London, a Golden Nica at the Prix Ars Electronica in Austria, “Artist of the year” Rave Award from Wired Magazine, and a Rockefeller fellowship. Rafael LazanoHemmer currently lives in Montréal.

Sahil Naik (b. 1991) works with incidents he is twice removed from and seeks correlations between myth, religion, history, facts and information made available on the internet. In his sculptural installations, the fine line between the real and the staged blur. Naik is particularly interested in examining the moment when evidence, architecture, reality and rumors come together and lead the viewer to build a narrative or imagine its history. Naik completed his M.V.A (Sculpture) from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University of Baroda (Distinction) and B.F.A with a specialization in Sculpture (First Division) from Goa College of Art. His debut solo exhibition took place at Experimenter, Kolkata (2017) and he exhibited at Delfina Foundation and Asia House, London, UK; Khoj International Artists’ Association, India; and the Aomori Contemporary Art Center, Aomori, Japan. His other participations include the Kolkata Arts Festival, India (2017) and Kochi Muziris Biennale in the Students’ Biennale, Kochi, India (2016). Naik is the recipient of several awards including the National Students’ Biennale Award instituted by the Kochi Muziris Biennale; The Jury Prize, Centre of International Modern Art, CIMA Awards 2017, Kolkata Arts Festival, Kolkata, 2017; and The Chinmoy Pramanick Memorial Award for Excellence 2016. He has participated in a number of workshops and residencies including: Aomori Contemporary Art Center, Aomori, Japan (2018), Khoj International Workshop, Goa (2017) and Khoj Peers Emerging Artist Residency (2017). Sahil Naik lives and works in Ponda, Goa.

SUPERFLEX (Jakob Fenger, Rasmus Nielsen and Bjørnstjerne Christiansen; founded in 1993) With a diverse and complex practice, SUPERFLEX challenges the role of the artist in contemporary society and explores the nature of globalisation and systems of power. They are known for art works with wit and subversive humour that address serious social and cultural concerns. SUPERFLEX describe their works as tools - thereby suggesting multiple areas of application and use. With projects engaging alternative models for the creation, dissemination and maintenance of social and economic organisation, SUPERFLEX gained international recognition for their presentations including the Tate Modern Turbine Hall Commission, London, UK (2017), Pérez Art Museum, Miami, USA (2016); Euphoria Now - von Bartha, Basel, Switzerland (2015); The Science Museum, London (2010), Sprengel Museum; Hannover (2010); and Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC (2010). Their work has also been shown as part of numerous museums and international exhibitions, most recently including the Shanghai Biennial (2016 and 2010), Marrakech Biennale (2016), and Sharjah Art Biennial (2013). Their works are represented in several public art institutions, such as MoMA, New York; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; FRAC - Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque; Coleccion Jumex in Mexico City. SUPERFLEX work & live in Copenhagen.

Susan Schuppli is an artist and researcher whose work examines material evidence from war and conflict to environmental disasters. Her current work explores the ways in which toxic ecologies from nuclear accidents and oil spills to the dark snow of the arctic are producing an “extreme image” archive of material wrongs. Schuppli’s creative projects have been exhibited throughout Europe, Asia, Canada, and the US and her recent projects have shown at Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne, Australia (2018), SculptureCenter, New York, USA (2018), Trace Evidence, a video trilogy commissioned by Arts Catalyst UK & Bildmuseet, Sweden (2018) and Atmospheric Feedback Loops, a Vertical Cinema commission for Sonic Acts, Amsterdam (2017). She has published widely within the context of media and politics and is author of the forthcoming book, Material Witness (MIT Press), which is also the subject of an experimental documentary. She is Reader and Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths where she is also an affiliate artist-researcher and Board Chair of Forensic Architecture. She is the recipient of the 2016 ICP Infinity Award. Susan Schuppli is based in London.

hurt us, enrage us and justify our artistic Zuleikha Chaudhari is a theatre director commitment? Her works have been and lighting designer based in Delhi. Her works shift between theatre and installation shown at the Weiner Festwochen, Kunsten and investigate the role of the viewer in the FestivaldesArts, Festival D’Automne, Seoul Performing Arts Festival, Asian performative experience and the tension Performing Arts Festival, Tokyo, Berlin between looking or watching and doing or Biennale, Kochi Biennale, Dhaka Art acting. Her ongoing research considers the structures and codes of performance as well Summit, INSERT2014, New Delhi Chronus Art Centre, Shanghai, Essl the function and processes of the actor as Museum, Vienna, “ IFA GALLERIES, reality and truth production. Her current Stuttgart and Berlin, Johannesburg Art research uses archival documents (texts Gallery, Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa and photographs) to develop theatrical etc. Zuleikha Chaudhari lives and works performances as a way of thinking about in Delhi. the relationship between production of memory, the role of the archive and how that pertains to the retrieval and reliving of an event. What do Khoj International Artists’ Association is a not-foremotions, presence, profit contemporary art organization based in New Delhi, and history mean on which provides physical, intellectual and financial support the stage? How does for artists and creative practitioners. Through a variety of an event relate to programs including workshops, residencies, exhibitions, talks, its reiteration; how and socially engaged projects, Khoj has built an international does memory relate reputation as an outstanding alternative arts incubation to the remembered? space. Since its inception in 1997, Khoj has developed itself What experiences and as a unique art lab, and has supported the experimentation what images touch or of many leading Indian and International artists. Through active resource-sharing, Khoj has catalysed communities of artists and ideas into networks in Indian and south Asia. Since 2000, Khoj has researched, initiated and facilitated the South Asia Network for the Arts (SANA). This network has articulated interactions between diverse groups of artists, geographies and cultures. From 2007-2011, Khoj supported three not-for-profit artist led initiatives in different parts of India leading to the formation of a National Network. Khoj has expanded the sector by encouraging the development of experimental practice across India. The National Network includes: 1Shanthiroad, Bengaluru, Khojkolkata, Kolkata, West Bengal, Desire Machine Collective, Guwahati, and CAMP, Mumbai. Notable collaborations and exhibitions include: Frozen World of the Familiar Stranger with Kadist, San Francisco, USA (2016), Word.Sound.Power. collaborative exhibition with Tate Modern, London, UK (2014), Khoj LIVE International Performance Festival (2008, 2012), and ‘Dus-Tak’ Community Arts Festival (2012). Khoj is the curator of the 4th edition of the Pune Biennale.

Khoj Team Director Pooja Sood Programme and Curatorial Mario D’Souza Mila Samdub (until December, 2018) Radha Mahendru Lekha Jandhyala, Khoj Fellow 20182019 Media and Production Suresh Pandey Ashif Programme Coordinator Ritika Khatri Administration and Accounts: Manoj VP Laxmi Devi Arun Chettri Manohar Bhengra Curators Mario D’Souza, Mila Samdub and Radha Mahendru Exhibition Design Mario D’Souza Copy-editing Lekha Jandhyala Graphic Design Mila Samdub Installation Team Shekhawat Khan and Team Bhola Ji and Team Kishen Ji

Special thanks Hoor Al-Qasimi Reem Shadid Sharjah Art Foundation Prateek and Priyanka Raja Joshua Nassiri Giri, Amman Husain and Uma Ray Experimenter, Kolkata Sree Banerjee Goswami Project 88 Wysing Art Center Bletchley Park Trust Jakob Fenger, Bjørnstjerne Christiansen and Rasmus Nielsen Daniela Zyman SUPERFLEX Studio Malene Natascha Ratcliffe Mikael Brain Cristina Casals Soler Jagdip Jagpal Umah Jacob, Gautami Reddy and the India Art Fair Ish Sherawat Mr. Rajai Al Daoudi Simon Turner and Metro Imaging, UK Uday Shah and Universal Art Packaging Rishi Seth Digital Image Solutions Mahavir Digital, Pune