Exhibition
WHEN
January 22 - March 31, 2020
12-8 PM
WHERE
NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery
WHO
NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery
Open to the Public
The Sovereign Forest, by Amar Kanwar, in collaboration with Sudhir Pattnaik/Samadrusti and Sherna Dastur, is an ongoing multimedia installation that is a creative response to crime, politics, human rights, and ecological crisis. It evolved out of the political and environmental conflict in the resource-rich, and largely tribal Indian state of Odisha. Kanwar has been observing and documenting the industrial interventions that have irrevocably altered Odisha’s landscape for more than a decade. The Sovereign Forest is a long-term commitment of the artist with media activist Sudhir Pattnaik, and designer and filmmaker Sherna Dastur.
Multiple works make up The Sovereign Forest, which has appeared in different iterations. At its core are two films: The Scene of the Crime (2011), a film that documents landscapes selected for industrial development prior to their obliteration, and A Love Story (2010), about the experience of that loss. The installation will include three large handmade books, The Counting Sisters and Other Stories (2011), The Prediction (1991–2012), and The Constitution (2012) with their own films projected on its pages. Containing local fables, stories of the incarcerated, and pieces of “evidence” such as a fishing net, a cloth garment, rice seeds, a betel leaf, and newspaper embedded inside the paper, visitors are encouraged to turn the pages and read these stories.
Installation view: Amar Kanwar: The Sovereign Forest, Documenta 13, Kassel, 2012 Photo: Henrik Stromberg
In Collaboration with
NOTICE: in keeping with the response to COVID-19, the exhibition is temporarily closed until April 5, and until further notice.
Always be the first to know about what's going on in our community. Sign up for one of our newsletters and receive information on a wide variety of events such as exhibition, lectures, films, art performances, discussions and conferences.
