Tarun Nagesh, Author at QAGOMA Blog

‘The fibrous souls’ installation constructed with 70 giant shikas

Posted by Tarun Nagesh ● 17 May 2022

The fibrous souls 2018–21 currently in the Queensland Art Gallery Watermall is constructed with 70 giant shikas — embroidered, reticulated bags typically made of jute strings that are tied to a beam in the ceiling of houses and used to hold pots and food containers — Shikas are found in almost every house in rural Bangladesh and are traditionally made at home by families. Their designs, knotting and decoration varies between regions.

Kamruzzaman Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts expansive installation focuses on a part of Bengal’s complex and pervasive colonial history through personal stories of movement and displacement, the artwork articulates how a small part of the community came to settle in the surrounding villages.

Watch our installation time-lapse

Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Bangladesh b.1974 / Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, Bangladesh, est. 2001; Collaborating artists: Johura Begum, Monowara Begum, Majeda Begum, Fatema Begum (1), Shabnur Begum, Chayna Begum, Fatema Begum (2), Samiron Begum, Shirina Begum, Rekha, Nasima Begum, Shushila Rani, Protima Rani, Akalu Barman / The fibrous souls 2018–21 / Jute, cotton, thread, clay, brass / 70 pots: 40–100cm each (diam.) (approx.) with 70 shikas of various dimensions / Originally commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation / Purchased 2021 with funds from Metamorphic Foundation through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane / © The artists

Stories that inspired the artwork are drawn from families that had followed the railway tracks from what is now Bangladesh into India, after the British East India Company established the Eastern Bengal Railway. Operating under British Indian rule from 1892 to 1942, the railway served the profiteering trade interests of British India, fuelled by locally produced commodities such as jute, indigo and opium. The domination of these cash crops led to food scarcity, debt and land loss, forcing people — such as the ancestors of the Thakurgaon jute makers — to turn away from farming their own lands.

Families gradually left their homes to follow opportunities along the railway to Assam; however, during the 1947 Partition of India, they found themselves separated from their homes by a new national border, only to be forced back over from India into what had become East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). They settled along the Brahmaputra River in the regions by the new border dividing Bengal. As this vast river continually eroded, their plight turned from political to ecological migration, slowly moving westwards until they settled in Thakurgaon.

Cover Assam-Bengal Railway Guide no.51, 1929 — Cover *Assam-Bengal Railway Guide* no.51, 1929

Over more than 20 years, Kamruzzaman Shadhin has developed new possibilities for contemporary art in Bangladesh, centred around the communities of his home village of Balia in the far north-western state of Thakurgaon. In 2001, he established Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts to work with local indigenous Santhal communities. The foundation seeks to be a catalyst for social inclusivity through collaborative approaches.¹

Shadhin is also one of Bangladesh’s foremost contemporary artists, known for his installations and performances that address environmental and social issues, particularly those facing regional Bangladesh and its communities. Together with Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, he produces ambitious contemporary art projects, driven by the principles of community development and exploring shared culture and histories.

Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Bangladesh b.1974 / Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, Bangladesh Est. 2001 / The fibrous souls 2018-21 (work in development in Thakurgaon, Bangladesh) — Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Bangladesh b.1974 / Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, Bangladesh Est. 2001 / *The fibrous souls* 2018-21 (work in development in Thakurgaon, Bangladesh) / Courtesy: the artists

Working with 13 women hailing from jute-making families to construct the shikas, along with a handful of other local craftspeople to create the pots and connecting jute ropes, Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts have constructed a giant hanging system of shikas, laid out as the map of the historic Eastern Bengal Railway that began this story.

Reference image from Assam-Bengal Railway Guide, no.51, 1929 — Reference image from *Assam-Bengal Railway Guide*, no.51, 1929

The women created their own designs on the shikas, so each is unique and features various wrapping and knotting techniques and additional decoration. The shikas hold brass, jute and clay storage pots, which are suspended over water for APT10. The hanging pots each symbolise the stations of towns and cities on the railway map — from Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Chittagong (now Chattogram) in the south, to Darjeeling and Guwahati in the north — signifying the defining role this piece of colonial infrastructure has played in shaping their lives. In Shadhin’s words, the installation is

an attempt to interweave these historical and cultural strands that seem apparently and innocently disconnected, and connect these to the present-day peasant conditions in Assam and Bengal.²

The project draws together members of communities to explore their own stories and cultural practices — and is a product of the unique practice Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts have developed. Imbued with local and social values, it is a practice that advocates and finds in regional communities new pathways for contemporary art that are not reliant on art centres or global arts discourse, revealing new possibilities for art production to audiences far from where they emerge.

Tarun Nagesh is Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, QAGOMA
This is an edited extract from the QAGOMA publication The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art available in-store and online from the QAGOMA Store.

Endnotes
¹ Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts continues to be run by Kamruzzaman and Salma Jamal Moushum to develop pathways
for cultural and artistic exchange, including artist residencies, art workshops and children’s puppet theatre, and to support crafts industries and cultural festivals.
² Kamruzzaman Shadhin, ‘Fibrous souls’, artist’s website, 2020,<https://kamruzzamanshadhin.com/fibrous-souls-2020/>,
viewed June 2021.

Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Bangladesh b.1974 / Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, Bangladesh, est. 2001; Collaborating artists: Johura Begum, Monowara Begum, Majeda Begum, Fatema Begum (1), Shabnur Begum, Chayna Begum, Fatema Begum (2), Samiron Begum, Shirina Begum, Rekha, Nasima Begum, Shushila Rani, Protima Rani, Akalu Barman / The fibrous souls 2018–21 — Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Bangladesh b.1974 / Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, Bangladesh, est. 2001; Collaborating artists: Johura Begum, Monowara Begum, Majeda Begum, Fatema Begum (1), Shabnur Begum, Chayna Begum, Fatema Begum (2), Samiron Begum, Shirina Begum, Rekha, Nasima Begum, Shushila Rani, Protima Rani, Akalu Barman / *The fibrous souls* 2018–21 / © The artists / Photograph: M. Tickle © QAGOMA

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Tantric Paintings: Spirituality and art are inextricably linked

Posted by Tarun Nagesh ● 3 May 2022

A rare group of paintings by the late North Indian painter Kalu Ram are unique examples of the highly experimental artform and complex intangible concepts of Tantrism. Ram’s paintings communicate the untameable cosmic energy of Tantric belief, drawing on a knowledge system where spirituality and art are inextricably linked as are tradition and experimentation. From a generational line of artists that practice Tantric painting in and around Jaipur, the area most well-known for Tantric art, Ram has been considered one of the most individualistic and experimental artists practicing the coded art in the contemporary era.

Tantrism is a school of Indian religious thought that has been practised for around 1500 years and is present in aspects of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. It is based on doctrine and esoteric practices, with a particular focus on garnering an understanding of the mind, body and universe through studies of cosmic energy and the supernatural. To communicate the philosophy’s profound ideas, Tantric artists are challenged to produce images of concepts that have never been seen or produced; visualising and giving form to intangible ideas assists with building an understanding of the universe as a manifestation of divine energy.

Cycle of Life

Kalu Ram, India c.1940s–2010 / Cycle of Life #05 1970s — Kalu Ram, India c.1940s–2010 / *Cycle of Life #05* 1970s / Gouache on paper / 50.5 x 33cm / Gift of an anonymous donor through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation 2021. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Estate of Kalu Ram

Ram’s work is rooted in the beliefs and practices of Tantra passed down through generations of his family. From a young age, Ram began practising painting the diagrams and incorporating the ancient symbols associated with belief around cycles of rebirth. In the mid 1970s, he painted almost exclusively Tantric subjects — particularly mandalas and images of Jambudvipa (one of the four continents of Buddhist, Jainist and Hindu mythology) — but such was his inventiveness that no two paintings were ever alike.¹ He also painted the achievements of the gods, as recorded in epic Hindu poems like the Mahabharata and Ramayana, and scenes illustrating the teachings of Jainism.² In particular, through his paintings, Kalu Ram has given shape and colour to the legends associated with rural traditions with a diverse repertoire of animal studies, yantras and mythical beasts.

Many Lives Lived

The ‘Cycle of Life’ works show destructive gods punishing and devouring humans, who appear to be enduring the sufferings of the Kali Yuga — the dark age in which we currently live.³ Bestial and giant in appearance, their mask-like faces bare horns and fangs as they interrupt the life cycle of the monochrome-hued humans, who are powerless against them. Works from ‘Many Lives Lived’ series show animal, human and anthropomorphic characters in a number of scenarios, composed in an almost comic-book manner. These works likely draw on more local rural traditions and legends, and we see the beast figures interacting with the humans in some fierce encounters. Across Ram’s works, symbols such as the lingam (phallus), figures thrown into fires (a prime agent of spiritual release), and nagas (serpents), along with animals that would be commonly seen in this northern part of India.⁴ Primarily androgynous, the figures represent the focus on non-duality in Tantric thought. Surrounding them, and throughout the compositions of all the works, written texts express the Tantric principles and teachings Kalu Ram has envisioned around for the images he has created.

Tarun Nagesh is Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, QAGOMA
This is an expanded version of an article originally published in the QAGOMA Members’ magazine, Artlines, no.3, 2021

Endnotes
¹ Joost van den Bergh, Kalu Ram: Tantric Painter from Jaipur, Joost van den Bergh Ltd, London, 2020, p.3.
² Van den Bergh, p.3.
³ Zoë Slatoff, ‘Yantras in practice’, in Nicola Hodgson (ed.), Perfect Presence, Joost van den Bergh Ltd, London, 2019, p.10.
⁴ Virginia Whiles, ‘Kalu Ram’, in Angela Koo (ed.), Kalu Ram: Tantric Painter from Jaipur, Joost van den Bergh Ltd, London, 2020, p.5.

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Works by Kalu Ram feature in the ‘Fine Lines’ exhibition in the Henry and Amanda Bartlett Galleries (Gallery 6) at the Queensland Art Gallery from 18 September 2021 to 22 May 2022.

Featured image detail: Kalu Ram Cycle of Life #05 1970s
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Installation is a layering of sound, visuals & mechanics

Posted by Tarun Nagesh ● 25 Apr 2022

A Diasporic Mythology 2021 is a kinetic and sound installation commissioned for ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) and developed from Bagus Pandega’s interest in the historical narratives and circulation of instruments.

The artist became fascinated with a particular koto instrument, named a Taishogoto, dating to the Taisho period (1912–26), that he stumbled across in Japan. This particular historical version of the stringed instrument (also known as the Nagoya harp) was developed by a musician in Nagoya and varied greatly in design from the classical koto by incorporating automation, through typewriter-like keys, influenced by Western music structures. Its popularity was fleeting, although it had a considerable influence on instruments outside of Japan at the time, and the instrument is seldom used today.

Pandega has also been scouring Indonesia for instruments that directly resemble the Taishogoto but are considered native to their locations and are commonly used in ritual ceremonies. The installation A Diasporic Mythology brings together different examples of these Indonesian instruments — including a Mandaliong, Balinese Penting, Kecapi Sijobang and Lombok Penting — in an arrangement together with a single Japanese Taishogoto.

Tea plants are connected to sensors that follow musical notations on a paper roll derived from interviews Pandega conducted with musicians. These then trigger solenoid drivers with a rotating motor attached to each key of the instruments, allowing the score to be played. The tea plants become the centre of the installation and signify a further exploration of historical cultural influence between the two countries: the first tea plants were brought to Indonesia from Japan by the Dutch in the seventeenth century in an attempt to replicate the success of British tea cultivating in India, as part of a trade that would lead to the colonisation of Indonesia. On a tea branch in the centre of the installation a series of LED screens shows close-up footage of performers in Indonesia, which returns the performers to the sounds of the instruments and the local contexts and ritualised space they are associated with locally.

A Diasporic Mythology becomes a layering of sound, visuals and mechanics, carefully pieced together by Pandega through a sprawling system of custom-made devices. Yet through all the tangle of connecting apparatus, the artist draws out the fascinating history of these objects and the people, stories and ceremonies that have gradually evolved around them.

Watch our installation time-lapse

Bagus Pandega, Indonesia b.1985 / A Diasporic Mythology 2021 / String instruments: Taishogoto, Mandaliong, Balinese Penting, Kecapi Sijobang, Lombok Penting; tea plants (Camellia sinensis), LED screens, motors, solenoids, Midi Sprout, custom electronic and mechanic system, glass jar, vinyl paper, custom 3D-printed parts, zincplated steel, teak wood, copper, acrylic and instrument stand / Commissioned for ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) / Courtesy and ©: Bagus Pandega and ROH Projects, Jakarta

Koto performance alongside Bagus Pandega’s APT10 artwork

Bagus Pandega

Bagus Pandega’s sculptures and installations are a cacophonous web of mechanical, sound, light and automated kinetic constructions. The artist builds objects and devices into modular systems that operate as live and active multi-sensory sculptures, and his works reveal a passion for applied technologies and developing narratives around social contexts. A graduate of the Institut Teknologi Bandung, Pandega is a prominent member of a generation of artists in Bandung who have become known for incorporating technologies and experimental practices in their works, in contrast to other Indonesian art centres that are commonly associated with paradigms of representational, political and collective practices.

Pandega offers new ways to navigate objects and their intended utility, creating layered sound and visual experiences activated by custom-made electronics. A sense of simplicity underlies the complex set-ups, however, with wiring and older, pre-digital technologies left deliberately exposed. Each work gives considered focus to particular devices — lights, screens, amplifiers, instruments — as Pandega refines the ways they operate around a nexus of systems. Cheap and everyday technologies, such as amassed motorcycle lights, beacons, megaphones, small rotating motors, circuit boards and basic LED matrix screens are combined with industrial and machine materials, toys, instruments and cymbal stands from drumkits. Recent works have also introduced natural materials, carefully selected not only to contribute to the narrative that underlies the works but also for their biological energy and mechanical triggering potential. Plants and flowers are incorporated in installations, connected through MIDI sprouts — which convert biodata from plants into music — to trigger instruments and mechanics.

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Rigid architecture translates into soft veils of memory

Posted by Tarun Nagesh ● 18 Apr 2022

Throughout her career, Sumakshi Singh has developed a spontaneous and responsive approach to material and space. Her practice is characterised by rigorous explorations of spatial intervention that play in the gap between conditioned knowledge and direct perception, and in the spaces between physical object and illusory experience.¹ Her works engage narratives from inner landscapes — of personal memory, metaphysical and emotive experience — as well as the history and physicality of sites.

Singh’s ambitious sculptures and installations are rooted in the intimate processes of drawing and embroidery. In the artist’s recent, ongoing body of work this has focused on ‘groundless thread drawings’, which involve a laborious studio construction process that resonates with Singh’s earlier practices dedicated to materially intensive site-specific interventions.²

Singh started developing the threading technique around 2015 after stumbling across some of her late mother’s letters. The artist felt a sudden desire to trace their words in embroidery — a technique her mother had tried to teach her as a child — using it to tie them down to the page. Ironically, once Singh finished, the words seemed to protest this fixity, and she began to remove the fabric they were on, allowing them to float in space like fragile embroidery in air.³

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Sumakshi Singh, India b.1980 / *Afterlife (Door and shadow)* 2020–21 / Thread / 210.8 x 106.7 cm / Purchased 2021 with funds from Tim Fairfax AC through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Sumakshi Singh / Photograph: N. Harth © QAGOMA

Memories of her grandparents’ home in Delhi led to the further development of Singh’s embroidered sculptures. Her grandparents arrived in Delhi as refugees after the Partition of India and gradually built the family home. As a child, Singh continually moved across the country, and so the old house in Delhi became her only understanding of a constant home, with its familiar surfaces, objects, stories and smells. After its long history of hosting and serving the family, the home now lies abandoned.

The architectural features of the house have now become the focus of sculptural studies in thread and shadow, evolving into a series named ‘33 Link Road’ after the address of the old family home. Beginning with a series of the different gates at the entry to the house, and developing into threaded windows, doors, staircases and architectural aspects, the series captures the house frozen in time like a flower pressed between the pages of a book.

Sumakshi Singh, India b.1980 / (Left to right): *Afterlife (Bricks)* 2020-21, Thread, Three panels: 152.9 x 426.7cm (overall) / *Afterlife (Spiral staircase)* 2020–21, Thread, 365 x 168 cm / *Afterlife (Door and shadow)* 2020–21, Thread, Two panels: 210.8 x 106.7cm (each) / Purchased 2021 with funds from Tim Fairfax AC through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Sumakshi Singh / Photograph: N. Harth © QAGOMA

As the body of work has developed into the ‘Afterlife’ series, labyrinthine installations of various objects and threaded fragments deliberately construct interplays of spatial planes and illusory perspectives. Transparent images are subtly layered, built into voids, levitate across floors and walls, or find articulation through their shadows as they hover over surfaces. In a layered thread-drawing of brick piles, Singh also extends this idea of memory to the changing urban features of her neighbourhood, where old family homes are constantly being torn down, turned temporarily into construction sites and replaced with apartment buildings.

As personal archives, Singh’s thread drawings come together to reveal ghostlike spaces where rigid architectures translate into soft veils of memory. While the forms become skeletal, fragile and adaptable, they evoke the evasive desire of the artist to tie down these fading memories, to stitch them permanently in the fabric of time.

Endnotes
¹ Sumakshi Singh in conversation with Roobina Karoda, Line, Beats & Shadows: Ayesha Sultana & Sumakshi Singh in Conversation with Roobina Karode (video), Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi, streamed live 20/2/2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfOmfp3IMGg>, viewed 18/6/2021.
² Singh, artist statement emailed to the author, July 2021.
³ Singh, artist statement.

Sumakshi Singh / *Afterlife (Door and shadow)* 2020–21 / © Sumakshi Singh / Photograph: B. Wagner © QAGOMA

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On display at the Gallery of Modern Art during ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10). APT10 is at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane from 4 December 2021 to 25 April 2022.

Featured image: Afterlife (Drawing room window) 2020–21 / Thread / 182.8 x 121.9 cm / Purchased 2021 with funds from Tim Fairfax AC through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Sumakshi Singh / Photograph: M. Campbell © QAGOMA

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Magical and poetic stories conjure a distant, dreamlike place

Posted by Tarun Nagesh ● 17 Apr 2022

Intimate storytelling forms the heart of Jumaadi’s practice, revealed through narrative paintings, performance and poetry. The tales draw from villages and communities in Indonesia, with enchanting characters that are both imagined and borrowed from Javanese puppetry imagery. As the stories surface on large cloths, tin-sheet cut-outs and buffalo-hide puppets — as well as in shadowpuppet productions — Jumaadi recounts folktales, stories of migration and fantastical journeys.

In 2000 Jumaadi moved from Java to Sydney to study, establishing a prolific career as an artist in Australia while continuing to develop Indonesian storytelling styles, such as wayang kulit (shadowpuppet theatre). He now divides his time between Australia and a studio on the hillside of the small village of Imogiri, in the region of Yogyakarta, Central Java. The area carries historical significance as the former complex of the royal graveyard for the sultans of Central Java, and it is where his stories and collaborations with local artisans come to life.

Jumaadi introduces his work

Since 2009, Jumaadi has also spent time in the village of Kamasan in eastern Bali, including with the renowned artist Mangku Muriati. The village is home to the celebrated tradition of Kamasan painting, which uses a specially prepared Balinese cloth to illustrate religious teachings and for ceremonial purposes, such as narrating the Hindu epics. The tradition dates to the sixteenth century and was brought to Bali from the Hindu-Buddhist kingdom of Majapahit in neighbouring East Java.¹Majapahit is where Jumaadi’s ancestors are from, and so working with Kamasan artists has become a way of reconnecting with his ancestors’ traditions, preparing giant Kamasan cloths as the basis for his recent series.² For the artist, this series reflects on our current universal state and conditions:

They are as much about love — human relationships to each other and to nature — as they are about exploring issues of displacement, isolation and loneliness. Intricate motifs (such as tree branches, blood vessels, winding rivers, wet and dry leaf varieties, patterned fabrics worn by people) signify the beauty of time and geographic location.³

Jumaadi, Indonesia/Australia b.1973 / *Slingshot (the tree of life is the tree of death)* 2021 / Synthetic polymer paint on cotton cloth primed with rice paste / 310 x 382cm / © Jumaadi / Courtesy: The artist; Jan Manton Gallery, Brisbane; and King Street Gallery, Sydney

Jumaadi, Indonesia/Australia b.1973 / Flying artist 2021 — Jumaadi, Indonesia/Australia b.1973 / *Flying artist* 2021 / Synthetic polymer paint on cotton cloth primed with rice paste / 308 x 386cm / © Jumaadi / Courtesy: The artist; Jan Manton Gallery, Brisbane; and King Street Gallery, Sydney

Jumaadi, Indonesia/Australia b.1973 / Mountain high (peziara peziara) 2021 — Jumaadi, Indonesia/Australia b.1973 / *Mountain high (peziara peziara)* 2021 / Synthetic polymer paint on cotton cloth primed with rice paste / 311 x 382cm / © Jumaadi / Courtesy: The artist; Jan Manton Gallery, Brisbane; and King Street Gallery, Sydney

Across these banner-size cloths Jumaadi’s characters relay their magical tales in theatrical compositions. A boat transporting dust (perahu bermuatan debu) 2021 is inspired by stories of migration, including the biblical tale of Noah’s Ark and current day refugee ships passing through the Indonesian archipelago seeking refuge in Australia and elsewhere. In the work, a boat is loaded with sleeping people, animals, people wearing duck masks, people carrying burdens, a dead body, a large-scale head and people sitting, adopting postures resembling statues from eastern Indonesia. Flying artist (illustrated) 2021 explores the subjects of transportation, migration and dreams. Mimicking Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine, the artist has tied his body to a plane. Together they fly across the seas, seeing islands float beneath them like clouds. Here the flying artist is the hero but is depicted in a lonely state, wearing only his sarong from his old village. Mountain high (peziara peziara) 2021 (illustrated) depicts ant-like pilgrims on a tall mountain, representing people who climb the tombs of the kings of Imogiri. Both those going up and those going down the mountain seem to carry burdens and use different means and methods as well as rituals to reach the top of the tomb. Slingshot (the tree of life is the tree of death) 2021 is inspired by the game of Russian roulette; it explores the tension between two human beings, a man and woman, tied together in a slingshot. They face each other, sitting on the roof of a house, and above their heads are the tree of life and the tree of death inspired by an image from a handwoven ikat cloth from Sumba.⁴

Such magical and poetic stories conjure a distant, dreamlike place. However, while we are invited into these fantastical narratives, they are intended as reflections on our own stories and conditions, seeking understanding of our human, environmental and spiritual relationships.

Endnotes
¹ Jumaadi, email to the author, 7 June 2021.
² Jumaadi, email to the author, 16 September 2020.
³ Jumaadi, email to the author, 16 September 2020.
⁴ Jumaadi, email to the author, 16 September 2020.

Works by Jumaadi installed during ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10)

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Watermall installation underway for contemporary work from Bangladesh

Posted by Tarun Nagesh ● 22 Feb 2022

Suspended over the Queensland Art Gallery Watermall, installation is underway during ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10) for one of the most ambitious contemporary works to emerge from Bangladesh — a collaborative installation by Kamruzzaman Shadhin and the Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, made possible by Metamorphic Foundation.

Over more than 20 years, artist Kamruzzaman Shadhin has developed new possibilities for contemporary art in Bangladesh, centred around the communities of his home village of Balia in the far north-western state of Thakurgaon. In 2001, he established the Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts as a catalyst for social inclusivity through collaborative art and cultural projects.¹

Work in development in Thakurgaon, Bangladesh, for Kamruzzaman Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee’s The fibrous souls 2018-21 — Work in development in Thakurgaon, Bangladesh, for Kamruzzaman Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee’s *The fibrous souls* 2018-21 / Courtesy: The artists

An expansive new version of the installation The Fibrous Souls is a project Kamruzzaman has developed over several years, working with community members and artisans through Gidree Bawlee.² It explores part of Bengal’s complex and pervasive colonial history through personal stories of movement and displacement. The installation comprises 70 giant shikas — embroidered, reticulated bags typically made of jute strings, which are tied to a beam in the ceiling of houses and used to hold pots and food containers — and articulates how a small part of the community came to settle in the surrounding villages.

The stories that inspired the installation were drawn from families that had followed the route of the railways from what is now Bangladesh into India after the establishment of the Eastern Bengal Railway. Operating under British India rule from 1892–1942, the railway was constructed by the British East India Company for the profiteering trade interests of British India, fuelled by locally produced commodities such as jute, indigo and opium. The domination of these businesses convinced people, such as the ancestors of the Thakurgaon jute makers, to turn away from farming their own lands and work instead in these newly global industries. Families gradually left their homes to follow opportunities along the railway into the state of Assam; however, during the 1947 Partition of India, they found themselves divided from their homes by a new national border, only to be forced back over the border from India into what had become East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). They settled along the Brahmaputra River, in the border regions dividing Bengal. As the vast river continually eroded its banks, their plight turned from political to ecological migrancy, slowly moving them westwards until they settled in Thakurgaon.

Working with 13 women hailing from the jute-making families to construct the shikas, and a handful of local craftspeople to create the pots and connecting jute ropes, Kamruzzaman and Gidree Bawlee have constructed a giant hanging system of shikas laid out as the map of the historic Eastern Bengal Railway. From the shikas hang brass, jute and clay storage pots, each symbolising the stations of towns and cities on the railway map — from Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and Chittagong (officially Chattogram) in the south to Darjeeling and Guwahati in the north — signifying the defining role this piece of colonial infrastructure has played in shaping their lives. As Kamruzzaman states, the installation ‘is an attempt to interweave these historical and cultural strands that seem apparently and innocently disconnected; and connect these to the present-day peasant conditions in Assam and Bengal’.³

Installation for Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Bangladesh b.1974 / Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts Bangladesh, est. 2001; Collaborating artists: Johura Begum, Monowara Begum, Majeda Begum, Fatema Begum (1), Shabnur Begum, Chayna Begum, Fatema Begum (2), Samiron Begum, Shirina Begum, Rekha, Nasima Begum, Shushila Rani, Protima Rani, Akalu Barman / The fibrous souls 2018–21 — Installation for Kamruzzaman Shadhin, Bangladesh b.1974 / Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts Bangladesh, est. 2001; Collaborating artists: Johura Begum, Monowara Begum, Majeda Begum, Fatema Begum (1), Shabnur Begum, Chayna Begum, Fatema Begum (2), Samiron Begum, Shirina Begum, Rekha, Nasima Begum, Shushila Rani, Protima Rani, Akalu Barman / *The fibrous souls* 2018–21 / Jute, cotton, thread, clay, brass / 70 pots: 40–100cm each (diam.) (approx.) with 70 *shikas* of various dimensions / Originally commissioned by Samdani Art Foundation / Purchased 2021 with funds from Metamorphic Foundation through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © The artists / Photographs: C. Callistemon © QAGOMA

Tarun Nagesh is Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, QAGOMA
This article was originally published in the QAGOMA Members’ magazine, Artlines, no.3, 2021

Endnotes
¹ Gidree Bawlee continues to be run by Kamruzzaman Shadhin and Salma Jamal Moushum to develop pathways for cultural and artistic exchange including artist residencies, art workshops, children’s puppet theatre, and supporting crafts industries and cultural festivals.
² A smaller version of the installation was staged at Seismic Movements: Dhaka Art Summit 2020 and has now been expanded to the ambitious scale originally conceived through the support of APT10 Collection Benefactors Metamorphic Foundation. The project draws together members of communities to explore their own stories and cultural practices, and is a product of the unique approach Kamruzzaman Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee have developed to highlight local and social values in ambitious new forms of contemporary art.
³ See https://kamruzzamanshadhin.com/fibrous-souls-2020/, viewed 25 May 2021.

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On display in ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ from 4 December 2021 to 26 April 2022, and ‘APT10 Extended’ at the Queensland Art Gallery until 10 July 2022.

Featured image: Work in development in Thakurgaon, Bangladesh, for Kamruzzaman Shadhin and Gidree Bawlee’s The fibrous souls 2018-21 / Courtesy: The artists

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