(Total running time: 46:00 min)

The works in this program are primarily from the Indian sub-continent and were chosen because they emphasize the specificities of the region and provide a cultural meaning unique to it. Their engagement with diverse themes is nonetheless unified by their contemplation of the place and its inhabitants.

The ever-expanding Indian megalopolis functions as the works' backdrop, allowing one to examine different aspects of present-day urban reality as well as the various consequences. This enables one to view the effects of India's growing urbanism on the individual, whose perspective serves as the starting point and a point of reference in each of the works, providing both a personal and a rounder view on issues that are at stake in current Indian and global life.

In Gigi Scaria's A Day with Sohail and Mariyan and Ranu Ghosh's Quarter no. 4/11, the artists follow their subjects as they negotiate their place within the city, commenting on the rapid modernization of India and its tendency to leave behind those who are unwilling or unable to adapt. Questions pertaining to ritual, personal identity, and their negotiation of the public and the private space subtly emerge in Atul Bhalla's Mashk and in Sonia Khurana's Flower Carrier, as both artists engage in acts that comment upon central social tensions; Bhalla on the Hindu-Muslim relationship, and Khurana on the Indian Diaspora and issues of immigration and assimilation.

It is noteworthy that although most of the works have some implied reference to Bollywood—the world's largest and most prolific film industry—the dominant influence, conceptually and aesthetically, is undoubtedly documentary film-making practices. This tendency saves the works from being victimized by the observation, which has turned into a critic's cliche, concerning the influence of the story-telling tradition on Indian art. Taken together, the social derivation of the documentary genre, the narrative structure, and the audience-narrator interaction of the storytelling result in an unpredictable and captivating blend of fantasy and everyday reality. A distinct example of an amused gaze at this blend is presented in Bani Abidi's …So He Starts Singing, a work in which the artist exposes the mechanism behind filmmaking in an obvious ironic gesture to Bollywood.

Common to all the works is the difficulty in discerning the constant shift between reality and fantasy, as fantastic elements are made into reality and reality itself often proves to be too overwhelming to be true. The effect is of an undetermined zone, on the fringe of the imagination and cold reality, an unfamiliar and isolated space, which resists our familiar classifications and ways of knowing.

Atul Bhalla 

Mashk, 2006, 5:45 min
In this work the artist engages in the bloody task of slaughtering a goat in accordance with the Muslim Halal laws, in order to make a Mashk—a traditional leather water container. Disagreements concerning the slaughtering of animals have often brought Hindu-Muslim relations in India to a boiling point, and have been the cause of mass riots. In this ritual, the artist, who comes from a vegetarian Hindu family, embodies this conflict and its resolution.

Ranu Ghosh

Quarter no. 4/11, 2007, 13:00 min
In 2004, a factory in South Kolkata was sold to a group of real estate developers. Almost overnight all the workers were evicted from their living quarters and received little or no compensation. All have left with the exception of Shambhu Prasad Singh, a former worker. Despite threats, he stayed with his family in his flat as the factory was turned into rubble. Because they were forbidden from entering the construction site, the artist and documentary film maker Ranu Ghosh smuggled a camera to Mr. Singh, and this video is their unique collaboration.


Bani Abidi

…So He Starts Singing, 2001, 3:30 min
Manisha Sharma, an Indian film buff, was asked by the artist to narrate the plot of 26 different Indian films (ca. 1975 to 2001). What ensued was an hour of footage, from which the artist extracted cycles and patterns of the stereotypical Bollywood story, creating an absurd endless narrative.

Sonia Khurana 

Flower Carrier, 2003, 6:00 min
The artist goes through a metaphorical and an actual journey as she passes through urban landscapes in Europe and India, her eyes fixed on a flower she carries. While her surroundings fluctuate, she remains unchanged in a voyage that serves as a reflection on the role and status of artistic creation and of solipsism and assimilation.

Gigi Scaria 

A Day with Sohail and Mariyan, 2004, 17:00 min
Gigi Scaria's fictional documentary depicts a night out with Sohail and Mariyan, two waste-pickers who make their livelihood from trash piles in the affluent neighborhoods of Delhi. As their nightly journey progresses, we are exposed to an alternative urban existence, the other face of the city's consumerism.