[Reader-list] Kolkata/Nov 21: Freedom is Notional

[Naeem Mohaiemen]

Please pass on to friends in Kolkata. Hope to see some of you there.

Freedom is Notional
Experimenter Gallery
Kolkata
Nov 21-Jan 16

Facebook Photos
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Freedom is Notional brings together the works of three contemporary South
Asian artists
Naeem Mohaiemen (Bangladesh), Shilpa Gupta (India) and Bani Abidi (Pakistan)

Opens Saturday, Nov 21, 6-9 pm

The artists seek to raise questions and demand answers about the world we
inhabit and read about in newspapers everyday They are all keenly aware of
the politics and social dynamics that dominate South Asia in particular.
Naeem Mohaiemen’s photographs of rallies in Dhaka show a curious space where
freedom both exists and yet disappears. While the protesters are free to
voice their opinions, their actions threaten their civil liberties. The
suggestion of violence and its capacity to render some powerful and others
powerless inform Shilpa Gupta and Bani Abidi’s works. The idea of boundaries
as demarcations that blur with shifts in power connects Gupta’s “100
Hand-drawn Maps of India” and “Memory”. Abidi’s pieces question whether the
symbols of stability – the security intercoms, the dignitary – are imposing
restrictions upon people’s freedom.

In today’s world, freedom is perhaps a chimera; a powerful myth that has
been turned into a vain, foolish fancy in much of the real world. Using
photography, video and installation art, Naeem Mohaiemen (Bangladesh),
Shilpa Gupta (India) and Bani Abidi (Pakistan) try to breathe life into this
chimera with Freedom is Notional.

For further information please visit www.experimenter.in or feel free to
contact Prateek Raja at +91 9830015854 or Priyanka Raja at + 91 9830931535
or email at info at experimenter.in

2/1 Hindusthan Road
(under Goriahat Flyover, behind Kanishka's sari shop)