Chitra Ganesh+Mariam Ghani, Index of the Disappeared: Parasitic Archive, vinyl cling, 66 x 35 inches, installed at NYU’s Kevorkian Center, 2014. Image courtesy Index of the Disappearaed (Chitra Ganesh+Mariam Ghani).
Archival Alchemy: SAWCC's 20th Anniversary Exhibition
April 6 - May 14, 2017
@ Abrons Arts Center, New York
Archives are often cast as places of nostalgia; institutions for anchoring flights of fancy with the hard reassurance of facts; repositories for reinforcing “History,” capital “H” singular “y.” But those who take issue with the historical narratives that these archives traditionally upheld also find them productive resources for contesting the very stability, veracity and singularity that they once seemed to ensure. Countering a dominant linear logic, artists, especially those from diasporic and postcolonial positions, are critically positioned to work their magic on archival fodder—rich with mutable, malleable material that can remixed to new ends.
"Archival Alchemy" is the 20th Anniversary exhibition presented by the South Asian Women's Creative Collective, a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to the advancement, visibility, and development of emerging and established South Asian women or gender non-conforming artists and creative professionals across disciplines. I have the honor of guest curating this year's edition at the historic Abrons Arts Center on New York's Lower East Side.
The selected artists are working with literal archival materials, elements layered with personal and cultural memory, or ideological fragments from the past in ways that creatively reformulate meanings, identities, and historical and future possibilities. Works on work-on-paper, sculpture, installation, photography, video, participatory and digital projects from artists working across the South Asian diaspora will be on view.
Artists list coming soon... and stay tuned from programming announcements!