Map My History

[related-post]

Lahore-based artist Waseem Ahmed’s untitled series of works in miniature style is a critical commentary on the current, often media-generated, caricaturing of the Islamic identity as threatening. One can spot guns pointing towards a burqa-clad blue figure and the backdrop of Karachi in some of his works. His series gains significance in the light of the recent incident of the arrest of a 14-year-old boy, Ahmed Mohammed, in the US for bringing a home-made clock to school that his teachers mistook for a bomb.

Kedar Dhondu paints portraits and faces of the little-known community of the Siddhi of Goa in Dark Dawn. The Siddhi, an African community that was brought to Goa as slaves around the 15th century, when it was still under Portuguese rule, still speaks Konkani. Many of them are now settled in the district of Yellapur in northern Karnataka, where they later sought refuge.

The artist says, “Even today, we can find dark-skinned workers, with African resemblance, working as domestic helps in many Christian homes. At a certain stage, the slaves left Goa and settled in the neighbouring villages of Goa and Karnataka, out of sheer fear of torture and inquisition from the Portuguese. My work brings out these issues of sadism, brutality, and the metaphysics of hope embodied by characters across Goa.”

pallavi.chattopadhyay@expressindia.com