Step Across This Line – Contemporary art from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan

Group Show, Asia House, London | Curator: Deeksha Nath | October 2011

Exhibition text:

The exhibition features contemporary artists from three countries of South Asia whose work explores their colonial past, modern history and current regional, national and global identities. The title, borrowed from Salman Rushdie’s collection of essays, draws attention to how lines on maps can connect individuals, they can divide communities and so when they are drawn they are drawn across peoples lives. It thus calls into play the role of lines as boundaries but then also issues an invitation to cross the line, metaphorically, imaginatively and humanistically. This exhibition poses the questions: Can we consider what we mean to each other? Do we love or hate? Do we love and hate? Can we be friends and enemies and, most importantly, how can we be simultaneously context-specific, proud and post-national?

The artists participating in this exhibition are Naeem Mohaiemen, Wakil Rahman, Saira Ansari, Mehreen Murtaza, Abhishek Hazra, Priya Sen, Hasan Elahi, Unum Babar, Firoz Mahmud , Malik Sajad, Gauri Gill and Asim Waqif. The curator Deeksha Nath will function both as an insider and outsider as she has never visited Pakistan or Bangladesh but has lived and studied in London and now resides in New Delhi.

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