It is rare to imagine that a chance encounter in a city can result in a collaboration that traverses time and space. However, this is exactly what happened when Chicago-based artist from India, Gunjan Kumar and Massachusetts-based artist from Pakistan, Mahwish Chishty met in the United States in 2016. The artists from across borders realised that they shared the same Punjabi heritage.
This is when they decided to partner and present a multi-site exhibition of their reimagination of archaeological sites of the Sindhu (Indus) watershed, an area that stretches across present-day northwest India and Pakistan. ‘The Sindhu Project: Enigma of Roots’—it previewed at Exhibit 320, Lado Sarai, on Thursday and is on view till May 28—aims to rediscover the shared history of the South Asian subcontinent.
Of common connections
The works of Kumar and Chishty take parallel journeys across the archaeological sites—while Kumar explores the regions of Sanghol, Dholavira, and Lothal, Chishty’s work examines the Taxila Valley in Gandhara, Pakistan.
A fascinating aspect of this show is that even though the entire exhibition made its debut in South Asia Institute, Chicago, in June 2021, it was reconfigured post-debut into two modules—one at Zahoor ul Akhlaq Gallery in Lahore and the other in Delhi, which is curated by Shaleen Wadhwana. Therefore, on viewing these works on display in Delhi, you can almost imagine someone else in Pakistan viewing
the same work there, at the same time.
Divided yet united
Kumar uses mixed media in the form of riverbed soil, terracotta, muslin, and turmeric to investigate the sites she refers to and the artefacts of that era. Her series titled ‘Broken Whole’ features pottery shards; it is a reimagination of broken pottery that Kumar had seen at the sites. “I thought that these pieces were once a complete pot. Now these broken shards are a reflection of the fragmented lands of post-partition,” she mentions. The gaps in the six frames on display in Delhi are synonymous with the empty spaces in the frames from the same series presented at the Lahore gallery. “Culturally, we are alike but we have been fragmented, similar to the pot,” adds Kumar.
One of the largest installation is Chishty’s ‘His Shadow on Both Worlds’—a work on the Dharmarajika Stupa site at Taxila. Engraved on clear acrylic sheets, the installation is made to scale so that viewers can experience the grandeur of the Stupa just as the artist had. As one looks at the Delhi-part of the work, they will notice shadows of the engravings on the wall on which it is installed.
Chishty also presents a series of maps of Taxila. Explaining the significance, the artist elaborates, “While maps and borders are always in flux, through layering of different media, I wanted to push this outdated information to the background but still let it be eligible upon close observation, just like how an excavation of a site reveals the past of that land.”
Curated in harmony
Speaking of the curation, Wadhwana explains, “While Gunjan works with materials that are old, Mahwish’s motifs are old, but she has introduced modern-day mediums. This brings an overall harmony to the entire exhibition.”
CHECK IT OUT
WHAT: ‘The Sindhu Project: Enigma of Roots’
WHEN: Till May 28; Monday to Saturday, 10:30am -6:30pm
WHERE: Exhibit 320, F Block, Lado Sarai