News
Imagining the Nation State Grant Award
I am delighted to share the news that I am one of five lens-based artists from or working in India and Wales to be awarded the Imaging the Nation State Grant organised by the Chennai Photo Biennale and Diffusion Festival. This award is generously supported by Arts Council Wales, the British Council, and Wales Arts International. I look forward to begin work on producing new material and exploring the archive and researching this project and I thank the jury and all supporting organisations for this opportunity. I am also delighted to be amongst such talented India and Wales based artists.
10/11/2020
My project centres around the following themes.
“ Nostalgia is an imaginative longing for a home one never had, or that never existed (Boym, 2001). We strive to belong, to a place, to an “imagined community” (Anderson, 1983). In liminal spaces, where one has been dislodged from their ‘home’, what does it mean to belong? Do we imagine a place within ‘a nation-state’ or one in perpetual transition? These are questions that exiles carry with them and are fissures passed on to their children. My project “El Otoño” (“the Autumn,”) named after García Márquez novel The Autumn of the Patriarch, addresses these questions and contributes to discussions on identity following displacement. Forced migration continues at an alarming rate with one of its maximum expressions in the refugee crisis in Europe today. This project looks to another example of the long legacies of displacement.”
“ Nostalgia is an imaginative longing for a home one never had, or that never existed (Boym, 2001). We strive to belong, to a place, to an “imagined community” (Anderson, 1983). In liminal spaces, where one has been dislodged from their ‘home’, what does it mean to belong? Do we imagine a place within ‘a nation-state’ or one in perpetual transition? These are questions that exiles carry with them and are fissures passed on to their children. My project “El Otoño” (“the Autumn,”) named after García Márquez novel The Autumn of the Patriarch, addresses these questions and contributes to discussions on identity following displacement. Forced migration continues at an alarming rate with one of its maximum expressions in the refugee crisis in Europe today. This project looks to another example of the long legacies of displacement.”
