Sheba Chhachhi
RAKTPUSHP (Blood Flower), 1997
Text; B&W photographs; fabric; silk cord; paper; polycarbonate sheet; miscellaneous objects; light
84 x 18 x 36 in
213.36 x 45.72 x 91.44 cm
213.36 x 45.72 x 91.44 cm
Edition of 3
Temporal Twists: A Subversive Metalogue is Sheba Chhachhi's first solo exhibition in the Middle East.
Examining Chhachhi’s remarkable oeuvre in all its diversity over the span of four decades, the show includes seven seminal works created since 1997 featuring photographs, photo-video installations, and her signature animated lightboxes. This exhibition brings together the unsparing and often exquisite meditations on critical questions about gendered bodies, subaltern histories, the relationship between humans and the natural world, and eco-philosophy.
Eponymically the title refers to a kinetic sculptural installation - Temporal Twist, which resonates at several levels – the inventions of cultural and personal memory, retold stories, and shared histories. The show presents ‘twists of time’ that lie as much in the conjunction of the works as in the content of each work - ametalogue (from Gregory Bateson's - Steps to an Ecology of Mind,1972).
A space for relational inquiry, a conversation about conversation, thought exercises, and a playful dialectic structure which itself is closely related to the subversive subject matter of the works, the exhibition marks the important place that the artist holds in the lineage of feminist practitioners creating intersections between art, activism and the archive.
An extension to the exhibition is screenings of documentary films about the artist and her work. In addition, we present the film ‘Moving the City’, 2016, an urban fable, in which Chhachhi's interest in the increased fluidity between private and public space in contemporary cityscapes creates a metaphoric sketch of the negotiations of body and subjectivity that single women in Delhi make as they traverse the city, crossing borders of class, caste, and neighbourhood.
