10 Chancery Lane Gallery presents the new video works by Indian artist Surekha – “Un-Claimed & Other Urban F(r)ictions”
Hong Kong, Feb 2010 – Visual artist Surekha had earlier held an exhibition of video-Installation titled, “Communing with Urban Heroines”. Now, she is showing her new videos highlighting the 'unusual preoccupations' of people who assign a specific personality to the city. These people project a sense of belongingness to the city. They propose a sense of self-dependence, an alternative mode of life preoccupation; and a sense of restrain against the loss of individuation due to global uniformity.
These videos (Group 1) by Surekha are the result of her interaction with these people. And these works contain a different take on the city’s personality through such and other alternative ‘others’ and ‘different’ people’s vocation, exposing the stark reality of the city: A retired old man who laughs at the break of dawn; a woman who eats and sleeps in a public park (for thirty years now); a talkative Hindi speaking man and his articulate, English speaking ex-mason associate delving on E-resource and creating jobs for ‘economically weak Muslim women’ and men who undertake to bury unclaimed dead bodies in the city. What makes them icons? Is it their refusal to get swallowed into the homogenous urban tide? Each carve out a space, transform and laugh with their surrounding population to health, to clean it up with their zest and entrepreneurship or even sit outside it in rebellion like the woman in the park. Interviewed, they talk in monologues about their lives or interests.
The other five videos (Group 2) form together into a group, in the sense there is an ant moving within an altering boundary, the colour and shape of a wall that belongs to nobody takes addressing the notion of hygiene, the sense of routine brought into a demand for the desire of political alternatives and the obvious optimism that metaphoric towers cannot be fallen, are all, somehow, connected to the alternative behaviour pattern of such 'others' and 'different' people.
ABOUT SUREKHA
Surekha has been exploring the possibilities of the video form, negotiating the public and private spaces. She uses photography and video to archive, document and perform. Surekha was born in Bangalore and has studied art at Ken school of Arts and Santiniketan, Viswabharati University.
She has shown her works both in India and international shows like, Unclaimed-video installations-Samuha, Bangalore, Britto New Media Festival at National Gallery, Dhaka, Bangladesh; What do you Want? at Asia Triennial Manchester; Still Moving Image at Devi Art Foundation, India; Six Degrees of Separation: Chaos, Congruence & Collaboration in South Asia exhibition; FIAC2008 in Paris presented by Gallery Chemould; Public Places, Private Spaces at Minneapolis Art Institute & at the Newark Museum; Video Wednesday at Gallery Espace, New Delhi; The Second Sex at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong; India Moderna, IVAM Museum, Valencia, Spain; Video Mix, India, La Casa Encendida Cultural Centre Madrid, Spain; Transmediale-09, DEEP NORTH at Malmö Konsthall, Berlin; The Other (Indian)Story at Lakeeren; Instructions For Films (no.w.where) at Zoo Art Fair in the Royal Academy of Arts, London; Communing with Urban Heroines at Goethe-Institut, Bangalore; Photo and Media Art: A Journey of Discovery,Fluss, Austria; Horn Please at Kunst Museum, Bern, Switzerland; Grid/Room/Cell, Bodhi Art Gallery; Flames, Flowers and Other Images at Gallery Chemould, Mumbai; The Jerusalem Show, Al-Ma’mal Foundation, Jerusalem; Self, IMA, Brisbane; Other Side of the Sky, UNESCO, Paris; Sites of Recurrence, Dakshina Chitra, India and Boras Museum, Sweden; Indian Summer, Ecole Des Beaux Arts, Paris, France; Crossing Generations: Diverge, Gallery Chemould; Rights/Rites/Rewrites, Hartell Gallery, Carnell University, John Hope Franklin Center, Duke University and Mason Grove gallery, USA; Another Passage to India, Ethnographic museum, Geneva; Complexities of Life, Aboa Arsanova Museum & Lappenrenta Museum, Finland; Diva-2006 in New York presented by Mamia Bretesche Gallery (Paris); Ghosts in the Machine and Other Fables, Apeejay Media Gallery; and Selving a Body, Lakeeren Art Gallery, Mumbai.
Her participation in 2010 shows includes, Unclaimed: Samuha (artist collective) in Bangalore and 10 Chancery Lane Gallery (Hong Kong); Video'Appart, Baskiath video art fair: Paris & Dubai, Silvaasa Art Gallery: Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Young Artist Bukarest Biennale in Romania etc.
Surekha lives and works in Bangalore, India.
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Group 1 videos
“Un-Claimed”, 10 min, single-channel video, 2009-10
“Romeos & Juliets”, 8 min 30 sec, single-channel video, 2009-10
“An Empty Bench”, 8 min 30 sec, single-channel video, 2009-10
“r e s o u r c e”, 10 min, single-channel video, 2009-10
“Tree woman”, 10 min, single channel video, 2005
Group 2 videos
“Nobody’s Walls”, 4 min, 2008 [no sound]
“And an Other Day”, 4 min, 2008
“Not All Towers Fall”, 4 min 30 sec, 2008
“An Installation”, 4 min 30 sec, 2008/9
“Line of Control”, 3 min, 2003
