A group exhibition, Proposals for a Memorial to Partition, is now on display at Dubai’s contemporary art museum – Jameel Arts Centre, from June 18th until February 19th, 2023.
Artists and writers’ proposals for an imaginary memorial to the partition of India and Pakistan after the British colonial rule have been collected for Proposals for a Memorial to Partition. The proposals are presented in the form of artworks, texts or sketches, looking at the historical event from various points of view. Most of the proposals suggest that it is quite impossible to have a single monument or unifying narrative.
The crucial weeks in 1947 were the reason for long difficult and unresolved processes of displacement, fragmentation, conflict and nation-making still influencing people of the subcontinent. The exhibition Proposals for a Memorial to Partition takes on the unthinkable task of imagining monuments to an event without a clear beginning and which hasn’t ended yet, for which many conflicting interpretations exist.
Critic, curator and art historian Murtaza Vali started the Proposals for a Memorial to Partition project in 2011 as part of a series of publications commissioned by Sharjah Biennial 10 under the title Manual for Treason. Over the years, many more submissions were added putting the spotlight on the end of British rule in the Indian subcontinent.
The Proposals for a Memorial to Partition exhibition presents new proposals by both highly established artists and emerging ones showing in the Middle East for the first time: Bani Abidi; Saira Ansari; Skye Arundhati Thomas; Hemali Bhuta; CAMP; Abhijan Toto, Fileona Dkhar and Pujita Guha for the Forest Curriculum; Shilpa Gupta; Faiza Hasan; Aziz Hazara; Karachi LaJamia (Shahana Rajani & Zahra Malkani); Shreyas Karle; Amitava Kumar; Pak Khawateen Painting Club; Sreshta Rit Premnath; Fazal Rizvi; Seher Shah; Omer Wasim; and Nabla Yahya.
In its eight-month run, the exhibition public programme includes talks, seminars, films and various events for all ages.
To get more information, please visit the official webpage of the event.
You might be also interested in attending the exhibition Made in Tashkeel.
