HYDERABAD: Tiny temple with a ladder leading to its door, a silver hand, a cow glittering in red clay. A look closer tells you that the same is on someone’s shoulder.
Shoulder smeared with dry, powdered clay as if it were rising from the mud itself. The colour of the soil mingling with the body clay. The small objects are of silver used for religious rituals and passed on as family heirlooms or in other words relics of inheritance.
The body in the photograph is of Mansi Bhatt, an artist from Mumbai who showcased her photographs at Goethe Zentrum Hyderabad. A narrative flows through all the works hanging on the wall with the help of paper clips.
And near the entrance you witness a body suit hanging from the roof with a thread. A pair of boots is kept at the bottom. A face mask stays pinned to the wall. “This is not a dress. It’s the second skin. The extended skin. Worn, left, discarded also signifying multiple layers of the psyche of an artist especially when she is a woman,” says Mansi.
The artist also presented a video in which she is shown wearing the clothing items, hiding her face behind the mask, indulging in a non-verbal 20-minutes performance. Separating her and the audience is barbed wire which can be interpreted as mental, physical barrier.
Titled ‘Bastard’s callings to her last inheritance: conservative landscapes’, the show focuses on the denial that women have to face especially when it comes to inheritance. For example, the title is consciously picked up by the artist. She explains, “A woman is never called a bastard. It’s only men who are called by that name. It also means that women can’t claim anything. Though what she says and what’s on display has much larger context which can be interpreted in multiple ways with several layers intertwined to the same.
The exhibition is in two parts: one in landscape the other is on performance. “I am the bastard struggling with social and political challenges. The struggle shifts. This exhibition is to try to break the norm of a woman. The very social positioning is political,” she shares talking more about her show.
Another interesting part is that she works with a lot of prosthetics that’s how in one of the photographs you see another ear near her own as if it were growing from her skin. That’s where she’s used the body as a landscape. “It’s also the juxtaposition. The body and soul are the same,” Mansi adds. Near the playing video is kept a book dusted with red clay and a flower vase. On peeping inside the petals you realise that they actually are tiny ears blooming forth claiming the human body as its own.
On display till December 7