UnMYthU: Mithu Sen
UnMYthU is a museum show that presents byproducts of twenty years of performance. Simultaneously, it is a preview of an (un)certain future museum show. Mithu Sen has created five instructional byproducts which will be performed under surveillance and strict contractual guidelines during the period of the exhibition.
Chemould Prescott Road presents Mithu Sen’s solo show in India after eight years. The gallery will be converted into a (Con)Temporary Museum and this exhibition is a preview of an (un)certain future museum show. Five instructional museum pieces will be performed under legal contractual guidelines between the artist and each visitor during the period of the exhibition.
UnMYthU seeks to (un)present the artist’s practice through (un)frequented modes of engagement. The tangible manifestation of the exhibition is a byproduct of twenty years of performance. This museum exhibition is an exploration of performance of identities and the spaces of inbetweenness. Especially in the context of contemporary value creation and value consumption, mythmaking as a method of identity building and the social roles we undertake and discard. Sen employs the medium of life and human experiences as the material for her performances. The resulting byproducts are physical remnants of performed identities- manifested through pre-codified cognition and sensory impulses and reactions. Sen invites visitors to co-perform and (un)myth with her, but under contractual mandatory protocol. All visitors are (un)performing with the performer(s) - together exploring the layers of their shared (con)temporary (un)realities that manifest existence(s).
Over the last two decades, Sen has performed and produced conceptual and interactive multi format byproducts which include drawing, poetry, moving images, sculptures, installations, sound and others. She constantly (un)defines concepts and their functioning with regard to acceptable modes of interactions, questioning pre-codified hierarchies that define social performance of roles, politics of tabooed identity that marks the ‘other’ and the plethora of constructs that actualize human existence as a reality. Through radical hospitality, lingual anarchy, counter capitalism, (un)taboo sexuality and unmonolith identity; the artist persistently explores the void of inbetweeness, where (un)contructs dwell, waiting to be (un)realised.
