ART EXHIBITION
In different Asian regions of the Global South (and beyond), blue is deeply and vastly intertwined in many histories, presents and futures. Whether it be symbolic or related to tactile objects or substances, an indication of painful or joyful histories, it is complex and ever present.
It swims in our pasts, our present, and artforms; sung, spoken, seen, written, remembered, and felt. It is a predominant element, both tangible and intangible. It surges, unfurls, billows, and expands within and around us. Like all colours, it defies any categorisation as solely a colour.
Here, Aleena Akbar plays with different translations of shared experiences of “blue.” Using tools such as neutral networks and data collection, which use a collective intelligence, she deduces different interpretation(s) of universal objects and experiences. Her work illustrates what happens when information travels in circles.
Ariba Akhlaque’s body of work celebrates cherished memories and lost moments evoked by things and spaces from the past. Belongings of a loved one, a dried rose, motia phool, or a gajra, and the broken tiles have also been an essential element of the work; they have a unique sense of storytelling, depicting how time elapsed but the emotional connotations attached to some objects and spaces remain forever.
In essence, she has attempted to show personal loss, grief and time through documentation of objects in different ways which resonate with the language of nostalgia.