The exhibition Shamans and Dissent presents results from the 2011 West Heavens – Artist Dispatch Project. Conducted in Delhi and Shanghai, the residency invited four artists to construct intersections between individual and group experiences in a time when primary experiences are devalued, and to envision other cultures. The residency was one of many projects spawned by the West Heavens project, which over the last three years has reflected on western-dominated knowledge constructs, concepts of time and history seen in colonial modernity and existential quandaries created by behavior systems in modern life.
The exhibition concept and name Shamans and Dissent were inspired by an essay by Indian philosopher Ashis Nandy titled Shamans, Savages and the Wilderness: On the Audibility of Dissent and the Future of Civilizations. Furthermore, the curatorial intention was to consider the artists' intersecting experiences as an integrated text in a way that would value the unique history and circumstances of each participant. The result is a process that is continuously experienced, rearranged and presented, and irrespective of when or where it is applied, one that consciously reflects on the movement and exchange of global culture, knowledge and art
As an extension of the Artist Dispatch Project initiated by Raqs Media (who see art as a form of “kinetic contemplation”), the exhibition emphasizes presence underlying both the body and experience, interrogates what presence entails, and once again posits the potential of multiple narratives and political action, and the contemplative power of the lost tradition of storytelling.
The exhibition concept also responds to alienation and fragmentation arising from deployment of biopower under different modernizations, specifically its principles of organization and distribution. Nandy uses the shaman to exemplify the power of dissenting voices and renegade opinions, and his powerful insights urge deeper reflection of, or launch a counter offensive to, the dominant global political ideology of colonial modernity and its imposition of definitions on individuals. Nandy calls this struggle the “recovery of other selves,” and uses the shaman as a vivid and effective symbol of non-conforming, diverging opinion, and a strategy for this recovery.
Exhibited works reflect each artist's long-term beliefs and perceptions. Zheng Bo is known for incorporating the audience into his work, and here his concern is gatherings of Filipino laborers residing in Hong Kong and the ideas of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, architect of India's constitution. He inserts Ambedkar’s ideas into the contemporary dialog about social class in China and Hong Kong and by manufacturing situations, transforms intersecting experiences. The young artist Dhrupadi Ghosh's enormous ingenuity comes from her long term political engagement with neoliberalism, bureaucracy and her contemplation and advocacy of social justice in India. Her areas of interest are the street and community. The exhibition presents a series of posters by Ghosh, which reflect her long-term participation in social movements, and contain her powerful and highly significant voice.
Featured artists: Dhrupadi Ghosh, Lin Chi-Wei, Liu Wei, Prajakta Potnis, and Zheng Bo.
Image: © Lin Chi Wei, Hanart Square
