Sociopolitical Artist Commemorates Women on the 75th Anniversary of the Partition of India
Pritika Chowdhry sensitively memorializes the invisible women victims of the Partition of India in a quietly provocative art exhibition that addresses the use of rape as a weapon in the Partition of India in 1947 and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, at the South Asia Institute in Chicago.
CHICAGO, Aug. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- On the heels of the 75th anniversary of the Partition of India (August 15, 1947), which triggered a violent civil war that changed the lives of millions of people for generations to come and created India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in 1971.
The Partition instigated the rapid mass migration of 20 million people, an unprecedented movement that is often compared to the Holocaust. Its effects will continue to have a significant impact on millions of people worldwide.
Halfway across the world at the South Asia Institute in Chicago, postcolonial feminist artist Pritika Chowdhry's "anti-memorial" exhibition "Unbearable Memories, Unspeakable Histories" commemorates the women whose experience of sexual violence has been unacknowledged for three-quarters of a century.
This is a counter-memory of the Partitions of 1947 and 1971 that is erased from the popular memory culture of the Partitions. "Through visceral anti-memorials, I excavate these counter-memories in my large-scale sculptures and site-sensitive installations that reference the body to memorialize unbearable and difficult memories," says Chowdhry.
"My goal is not to speak for the women because that would be another kind of silencing," says Chowdhry. Her experiential art installations invite viewers to be in the space, in the act of bearing witness, holding space, mourning, remembrance, and repair.
Chowdhry's exhibition triangulates significant monuments in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and how they erase these counter-memories, unpacks the cyclical occurrence of communal riots in India since 1947, and creates transnational connections with the partitions of Ireland, Palestine, and other countries that were partitioned in the 20th century.
Fifteen years in the making, the exhibition is quietly provocative and contests the glorified nationalist hero narratives of the Partition. Open to the public till December 10th, Chowdhry will be doing artist walkthroughs on alternate Saturdays on Sep 3 and 17, Oct 1, 15 and 29, Nov 12, and Dec 10.
Tickets are on sale now for the exhibition.
Please see the South Asia Institute's website for more information on the exhibition.
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SOURCE Pritika Chowdhry
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