Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Broken Lens

Mixed-media installation 
Two-channel video (TV and projector), sound object, archival print as a counter gaze of the video and Bengali and English LED neon text
Exhibition: Body and the Map, curated by Sharmillie Rahman
Bengal Shilpalay, Dhaka, 2024

I conceptualized the framework for the work based on the experience of following incident.

The incident occurred in mid-August, 2024 when a cultural gathering was disrupted due to an attack by certain individuals. I witnessed this event firsthand. As I attempted to document the scene with my phone camera, my device was destroyed in the ensuing chaos. This confrontation deeply influenced me and became a key element in this body of work, where I integrated both the experience and the broken phone itself.




















Broken Lens, installation view, Bengal Shilpalay, Dhaka, 2024

Broken Lens,  video still






A Bridge and Beyond the Bridge


Digital college and single-channel video
Ongoing project
Exhibition: Foundation Art Divvy and Shahnaz Art Gallery presents 'Legacies of Crossing',  
Shahnaz Art Gallery, London, UK curated by Zahra Khan 
Screening: Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 'Histoire de famille',  CWB Paris, France
2024


  






 





            A Bridge and Beyond the Bridge, 2024, single channel video, 1080x1920




























A Bridge and Beyond the Bridge, 2024, archival print


 The work delves into the intertwined narratives of familial relationships drifting apart, with a focus on the Kalurghat bridge spanning the Karnaphuli River in Chattogram, Bangladesh. Built during British colonial rule in 1930, this bridge serves as a vital connection between the north and south of the greater Chattogram district, bisected by the Karnaphuli River. My family ancestry is rooted in south Chattogram, where this bridge historically facilitated communication between regions, bridging the gap from the region of British India. From the belt of my family ancestors, many left the southern part of Chattogram from the British period, particularly the partition period, to the Pakistan period and settled in different parts of this subcontinent. Then, during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971, some people in Bangladesh-India border areas took shelter for some time and worked in various ways for the freedom of the country. From the post-independence period to the present time, many people from this southern region migrated to other countries outside the subcontinent for different purposes and reasons, including re-settlement in Chattogram City and Dhaka. These familial and local stories are not linear, and there is no relationship or communication as there used to be. not many products or objects. There are now only random stories, some blurry, ruined pictures, letters, and this bridge.

Through a layered approach, the work incorporates visual elements such as part of the bridge structure, archival family photographs of unrecognised significance, and excerpts from letters and texts, as well as a slight drawing, all digitally integrating into a collage. Complementing these visuals is a video featuring a female narrator, embodying the collective familial past. The narrative within the video is a fictionalised merge drawn from different stories and correspondences, further exploring familial history and connection.

Saturday, May 11, 2024

Whimsy

Double-channel video with twelve pieces of archival prints, 2023
Duration of video: One minute five second
Solo Exhibition: Of Fragments
Curated by Sharmillie Rahman
Kalakendra, Lalmatia, Dhaka

 

‘Whimsy, a double channel video installation with prints to accompany, dramatizes the dismemberment of the human body recompensed by surfeit of concessional information disseminated by the mechanics of marketing and consumerism. Axing its primordial contacts with the world, the body is denuded of its vitality of movements and intentionality of actions, and eventually is reduced to the repetitive moves emulating that of a stringed puppet.'

- Sharmillie Rahman 
  
                                                                           



Whimsy, double-channel video with archival prints, each print size:11 X 8 in, solo exhibition 'Of Fragments'', Kalakendra, Dhaka, 2023, 
Photo courtesy: Sheik Nafi Hassan





Whimsy, archival prints, each print size:11 X 8 in





















Whimsy, video still

Friday, May 10, 2024

Closed Door

Double-channel video with LED neon text and six pieces of archival prints (counter gaze of the video), 2023
Duration of video: Three minute thirty four second
Solo Exhibition: Of Fragments
Curated by Sharmillie Rahman
Kalakendra, Lalmatia, Dhaka

‘Palash watches from within the protective bounds of the walls the tumultuous storm raging outside, reminiscent of lives being whisked away, displaced by the wind of change. In contrast, the interior reverberates with images and sounds emanating from a screen, part of an odiously calculated performance gaslighting a populace into squeamish submission. Counteracting which is another irreverent act of scratching and deflating a balloon, echoing the futility of any subversive act under the regime of control and surveillance, thus ‘exposing’ our ‘edges’ of vulnerability.'

- Sharmillie Rahman 
  

















Closed Door, double-channel video with LED neon text 




 









Closed Door six pieces of archival prints (counter gaze of the video), each print size: 10 X 6.5 in on paper, solo exhibition 'Of Fragments', Kalakendra, Dhaka, 2023 






Closed Door, double-channel video with LED neon text 
 Photo courtesy: Sheik Nafi Hassan
















Closed Door, video still

Open Door

Ephemeral and mixed media installation, 2023
Materials: A Bangla to English dictionary, electronics fan, a microphone with sound, a single- channel video 
Solo Exhibition: Of Fragments
Curated by Sharmillie Rahman
Kalakendra, Lalmatia, Dhaka















Open Door, single- channel video 










Open Door, video still










 Installation view

As our lives continue to be governed by forces of nature or power, this dynamic is reflected in the physical installation that accompanies 'Open Door.' The ephemerality of the installation forms embodies the interplay between multiple power structures, highlighting how these forces shape our daily existence. By incorporating materials and motifs that represent phenomena connected to memory, the work evokes a profound sense of nostalgia and personal history. 










Installation view







Insomni - lucid sleep

Mixed-media installation, 2023
Bangla and English texts in LED neon, photograph (18 pieces),  single-channel video
Duration of video: One minute twenty  five second
Solo Exhibition: Of Fragments
Curated by Sharmillie Rahman
Kalakendra, Lalmatia, Dhaka

'The vast arsenal of embodied experientiality Palash calls into action emerge ‘re-materialized’ on photographic surfaces/screens in the form digitally encoded simulation. The virtual corporeality thus constructed becomes the stuff of a parallel reality which is based more on transposition or replacement of identity than on similarity or representation. In a spirit of suspension of disbelief, the audience is trans(tele)ported to the claustrophobic world of a series of digital photographs entitled “Insomni-Lucid Sleep” where the ‘characters’, partially defamiliarized with the help of props, stage a performative ‘re-enactment’ of straddling a threshold between light and dark, metaphorically indicating knowing without seeing, as the Bangla title roughly translates, “ I can see with eyes shut during sleeplessness”. Or, where the video projection of a night bulb turns into a lodestar, eternally failing to show any path of resolution to the meaningless absurdities of life.'

 - Sharmillie Rahman















Insomni - lucid sleep, LED neon installation, 6.5 X 35 in, 2023
Insomni - lucid sleep, LED neon installation,18 X 30 in, 2023



























Insomni - lucid sleep, photograph (18 pieces), 12 X 9.5 in, 2023



Insomni - lucid sleep, props, 2023
Photo courtesy: Sheik Nafi Hassan




Insomni - lucid sleep, props, single-channel video, installation view,  2023















Insomni - lucid sleep, video still single-channel video, video still 2023