ART CITIES:Singapore -Amar Kanwar
Amar Kanwar has distinguished himself through films and multi-media works, which explore the politics of power, violence and justice. His multi-layered installations originate in narratives often drawn from zones of conflict and are characterised by a unique poetic approach to the personal, social and political. As the artist says: “If a crime continues to occur regardless of the enormous evidence available then is the crime invisible or the evidence invisible or are both visible but not seen?”
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: NTU CCA Singapore Archive
“The Sovereign Forest” (2011- ) keeps on growing. It has been presented in numerous contexts, including Documenta 13 (2012), the 11th Sharjah Biennial (2013) and the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2012–13). With each presentation, new works are created and added, which build on the installation’s focus and premise. The project’s latest version is on exhibition at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA Singapore). The work initiates a creative response to our understanding of crime, politics, human rights and ecology. The validity of poetry as evidence in a trial, the discourse on seeing, on compassion, justice and the determination of the self, all come together as a constellation of films, texts, books, photographs, objects, seeds and processes. Focused on the exhaustive struggles over the resource-rich land of Odisha in east India and the issue of its ownership. The “Sovereign Forest” is a long-term commitment of Amar Kanwar in collaboration with media activist Sudhir Pattnaik, and designer and filmmaker Sherna Dastur. For over a decade, Kanwar has been filming the industrial interventions that have reshaped and permanently destroyed parts of Odisha’s landscape – a battleground on issues of development and displacement since the 1990s. The resulting conflicts between local communities, the government, and corporations over the use of agricultural lands, forests, rivers, and minerals, have led to an ongoing regimen of violence that is often unpredictable and invisible. Situated within the work is “The Scene of Crime” (2011), an experience of a landscape just prior to erasure. Almost every image in this film lies within specific territories that are proposed industrial sites and are in the process of being acquired by government and corporations in Odisha. The act of storytelling and ways of seeing become pivotal to experiencing this terrain of conflict and understanding the personal lives that exist within this natural landscape. “The Counting Sisters and Other Stories” (2011), “The Prediction” (1991-2012) and “The Constitution” (2012) are three large handmade books each with their own films projected on its pages. Containing local fables, stories of the incarcerated, and pieces of ‘evidence’ such as a fishing net, a cloth garment, rice seeds, a betel leaf, and newspaper embedded inside the paper, visitors are encouraged to turn the pages and read these stories.
Info: Curator: Ute Meta Bauer, Khim Ong, and Magdalena Magiera, in collaboration with: Amar Kanwar, Sudhir Pattnaik and Sherna Dastur, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Block 43 Malan Road, Gillman Barracks, Singapore, Duration 30/7-9/10/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Thu & Sat-Sun 12:00-19:00, Fri 12:00-19:00, http://ntu.ccasingapore.org
