Mithu Sen
I am from there. I am from here, 2022-23
Mixed media with real and artificial hair, metallic thread frozen in clear resin, illuminated by light shining through the layered script.
with four clear resin blocks, each: 3.5ft x 3.5ft x 1.5in
approx installation dimensions: 16 x 4 ft
approx installation dimensions: 16 x 4 ft
Copyright The Artist
I am not there and I am not here. I have two names, which meet and part, and I have two languages. I forget which of them I dream in....
I am not there and I am not here.
I have two names, which meet and part, and I have two languages.
I forget which of them I dream in.
- Mahmoud Darwish
An installation with hair- drawings of an imaginary script that resembles Arabic, and a performance of poetry-reading in ‘non-language’.
This project extends my broader commitment to the act of un-mything, which is made manifest by limitations and feelings of anxiety/ fear as a subversion attained through a radical (un)establishment of language as both script and sound. This process of (un)scripting/ creating imaginary script leads to a series of effects being induced as a result of one's inability to comprehend, thereby 'othering’ normative reading and highlighting further the inhibitions and limitations of human communication, particularly in a cross-cultural scenario.
A desire and desperation to immediately make sense are rendered impossible resulting in confusion, agitation, and after a substantial struggle, frustration. At not being able to make sense of a point in the text, the reader/audience moves on- with an ‘assumption’ rather than deriving complete meaning in their mind. This induced dyslexia of the mind, therefore, becomes at once the site and the process of un-mything.
Mithu Sen, 2022 New Delhi, India
I have two names, which meet and part, and I have two languages.
I forget which of them I dream in.
- Mahmoud Darwish
An installation with hair- drawings of an imaginary script that resembles Arabic, and a performance of poetry-reading in ‘non-language’.
This project extends my broader commitment to the act of un-mything, which is made manifest by limitations and feelings of anxiety/ fear as a subversion attained through a radical (un)establishment of language as both script and sound. This process of (un)scripting/ creating imaginary script leads to a series of effects being induced as a result of one's inability to comprehend, thereby 'othering’ normative reading and highlighting further the inhibitions and limitations of human communication, particularly in a cross-cultural scenario.
A desire and desperation to immediately make sense are rendered impossible resulting in confusion, agitation, and after a substantial struggle, frustration. At not being able to make sense of a point in the text, the reader/audience moves on- with an ‘assumption’ rather than deriving complete meaning in their mind. This induced dyslexia of the mind, therefore, becomes at once the site and the process of un-mything.
Mithu Sen, 2022 New Delhi, India