Dirty Laundry and Parting Thoughts
Dirty Laundry & Parting Thoughts
Zahoor ul Akhlaq, A Visit to the Inner Sanctum I, 1995, acrylic on canvas.
30 January - 12 Feburary, 1998
Propeller Gallery
curated by Pamila Matharu
Dirty Laundry & Parting Thoughts is an exhibition of works by 4 contemporary South Asian-Canadian artists, which addresses themes of memory, loss and parting, in reference to the 50th Anniversary of India and Pakistan's independence/partition. The year 1997 not only marked the 50th year of South Asia's independence from British rule, it also reminds us of the uprooted separation of a nation severed on its socio-political, emotional and physical embodiments.
Through a range of media including, painting, printmaking, sculpture and installation, the artists in the exhibition will explore and re-examine oral histories which link them to the pre/post partition years. Though, the information drawn from these histories has been skewed and transformed over the years, into awkward feelings of confusion/denial/betrayal -emotions leading to the polarization of the many ethno/ cultural groups within the South Asian Diaspora.
This exhibition is not the media-happy, flag-waving, celebratory approach to defeating the Colonial Empire. Rather, the project aims to investigate within, examine the consequences of "Divide and Rule" and the hidden elements of our human condition;
The dirty laundry
