Contemporary Art and Identity: South Asian Diaspora in North America

Neena Arora, Sylvat Aziz, Shelly Bahl, Rina Banerjee, Kiren Budhia, Allan deSouza, Ameen Gill, Nikolas Groot, Alia Hassan-Khan, Annu P. Matthew, Tamara Zeta Sanowar-Makhan

22 August - 28 September, 2000

Baum Gallery of Fine Art, University of Central Arkansas


South Asian Diaspora in North America brings together eleven visual artists from Canada and the US who have exhibited with SAVAC and the Desh Pardesh Festival/Conference in Toronto. As a historical survey of the 7-year exhibition history of SAVAC, the project aims to highlight some of the diverse practices being explored by South Asian artists in the Diaspora. Focusing on the range and variety of visual expressions that are being produced by these artists at the turn of the century, this is not a thematic or media-specific exhibition. Many shared concerns and formal relationships do exists in the works of the participating artists, but the exhibition also highlights the disparity that can arise out of cultural and geographic specificity. The works resists the homogenizing tendencies of the dominant South Asian identity, and hopefully, facilitate a rich and textured reading of the contemporary views of the artists.