Where bodies claim their own space: A new exhibition in Pune enters the global dialogue about presence and power

“The conflict about space is not restricted to India or even south Asia. But, as Indians, we are aware of issues, such as untouchability and women not supposed to appear in a space where only men are allowed. The exhibition explores what it means today, in the 21st century, to own a space and appear in a space,” says Vikram. The artists, Arieno Kera, Katayoun Karami, Meher, Niloofar Rahnama, Ritika Sharma and Sejal Parekh, explore some of the ways of appearing in a system from a number of perspectives.

When you enter the exhibition, the first work you see is by Kera, an artist from a Nagaland tribe, who creates works that detect the colonial language of describing tribes, her identity and her culture. The work talks about the body; a viewer can tell that it is a female body but it is very ungendered with a lot of tattoos. “Tattoos hold a lot of significance in the Naga tribe because they are also memory markers. The artist is using her work as the way to archive these tattoos that might be losing significance as tribal people move towards a more contemporary or homogenized way of seeing their culture,” says the curator.

Parekh, who was born in India but lives in London, looks at women’s labour but within domestic spaces. A nine-minute video channel keeps playing, showing the artist rotating a chakki. “It shows how women have to put in the physical labour in shaping a home, and how the home itself is a gendered space,” says Vikram.

Sharma has created paintings that look at surveillance, which has become a reality for everybody living in cities. “You know that there’s someone always looking at us, watching us. There’s a constant surveillance of cameras, the government and the systems within governments. Whether this is for the good or bad is given to us to decide,” says Vikram. The artist presents the point of view of a camera vision, where one can see a body moving within a space but also about violence that is happening, such as a person snatching another’s bag.

Karami, an artist from Iran, uses photographs but with some people taken out of it. “She is exploring memory, and how absence itself can become a very important way of appearing,” says the curator.