Real Time Tactics curated by Mila Samdub

The exhibition explores the concept of ‘erasure’ as a form of assertion, centring the Mahad Satyagraha as a pivotal moment of rupture within the practice of Untouchability in India.

This symbolic non-violent resistance on the Indian subcontinent became the most important encounter of social equality and liberation struggle for civil rights in India, led by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, at Mahad.

To assert civil rights of denied access to water, Dr.Ambedkar and his delegates drank from the Chavadar tank, which took place at the 1st conference on 20th March,1927.

The Dalit movement had considered Mahad as its declaration of independence.

Mahad, had preceded quarter of a century before the civil rights movement of African-Americans, as well had preceded Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha in 1930.

The following five artists works contextualize this historic event, and its refractions. Rajyashri Goody’s ‘Manu’,‘What Is The Caste Of Water’; Amol Patil’s ‘Let’s clean the hand’ artworks and Prabhakar Kamble’s performance are the first to respond to the Mahad Satyagraha, which forms the contextual core of this exhibition.

Subjecting ‘purity and pollution’, the plight of sanitation workers is addressed by Amol Patil and Sudharak Olwe. Wherein, Prabhakar responds to Dalit lynching, through his resolute performance, ‘Human in Una’, which probes caste codes, understandings of humanism, as well embodies the Mahad subject. Ranjeeta Kumari’s work on the Constitution binds hope.

The exhibition extends a collaborative project between Prabhakar Kamble, Rajyashri Goody and Rumi Samadhan. The exhibition artists respond to Mahad Satyagraha for the first edition of the ‘Little Blue Zine’.

Amol Patil, Rajyashri Goody, Ranjeeta Kumari, Prabhakar Kamble, Padma Shri Sudharak Olwe

top: Rajyashri Goody, What is the Caste of Water, bottom: Prabhakar Kamble, Human in Una Performance

GHAR (Home) is the collection of Video, photographs, photo-book, and paintings to dissect the meaning of ‘Ghar’ both as an idea and perception. A temporary living room of a middle class family in Dhaka is set up to reflect the parallel existence and the inbuilt tension between ‘home’ and the ‘world’. ‘Ghar’ is immediately confronted by ‘bahir’ in Bengali Literature, which can also be contemplated as the inner and outer world, ‘us’ and ‘them’.

If Ghar has imaginary walls, time, structure, power relations how memories are being constructed? Memories of shelter, hope, peace, sound, smell, belonging, love, humor, imagination, secrets, domestication, sex, immorality, violence, death?

The exhibition aims to address the psychological state or constructed impression of Ghar, how it is embedded in human consciousness as a private space and how does the interpretation of ‘private’ dislocate, when a public space turned into home. Abir Shome’s ‘Lunar Landing’ shows how ordinary space and materials transform into extra territorial space. Afrida’s observation about conjugal life questions the institution of marriage and family. Hadi Uddin’s unconventional way of collaborating with people in a Rayer bazar, who are constantly in flux and are migrated in Dhaka for various reasons, illustrate the ephemerality of the concept. Shadman Shahid’s photographs demonstrate the brutal side of domestication, which is normalized and silenced. Sounak Das & Fahmida Mubin’s compilation of audio work from various viral videos offers us an illusory conversation between ‘ghar’ and ‘bahir’, virtual and tangible.

Abir Shome, Afrida Tanzim Mahi, Hadi Uddin, Shadman Shahid, Sounak Das & Fahmida Mubin

No Quarter top : Shadman Shahid, Lunar Landing bottom : Abir Shome,

How does our physical world and the socio/ political states of affairs affect our mind? How does our state of mental health manifest in our being, in terms of both our private moments or public action and reaction? Is it one way or the other? Or is it caught in its own paradox?

‘This too shall pass’ explores those boundaries and where the lines are getting blurred. Artist practicing from different mediums including Photography, books, performance, Text, found and archive images, will be presented in this exhibition whose works depicts and interprets the psychological state of our daily battles originated from personal traumas, violence, dictatorial authorities or simply the role of us as observers in despair.

Faysal Zaman, Sadia Marium,

Salma Abedin Prithi, Yasmin Jahan Nupur

: Salma Abedin Prithi

: Yasmin Jahan Nupur

Is it ever possible to retrace memory? How do our memories define us? Even if we don’t want to remember, are our minds still permanently imprinted? These are the questions considered by this exhibition. Without memory, humans cannot

exist; we relate our memories not only with objects and people, but also with space and architecture, which can impact individual memories as much as collective memory. Through built form, such as memorials, architecture helps to preserve specific memories. Memoryscapes is designed to render visible the stories and memories behind built spaces as portrayed by a group of Sri Lankan Tamil visual artists: T. Shanaathanan, Jasmine Nilani, Manoharan Prashath, Hanusha Somasundharam, M. Nilanthan, Samvarthani Gunaseharam. These artists challenge a clear distinction between memory as something active or received by revealing the intersection between personal memories, layered memories, collective memory, and the witness of memory. Through a set of diverse works including book art, installation, drawing, murals, collage and mixed media, Memoryscapes portrays the way in which notions of architecture and space connect and effect different types of memory. This exhibition charts a narrative of built space transformed by a contemporary politics that erases, (re)shapes and (re) builds: memorises.

Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan, Jasmine Nilani, Manoharan Prashath, Hanusha Somasundharam, Samvarthanai Gunaseharam, Mahathevan Nilanthan

top: Manoharan Prashath, Padalai bottom: T. Shanaathanan, The Incomplete Thombu facing page: Hanusha Somasundharam, Stain