Twelve Gates Arts is proud to present Proposals for a Memorial to Partition, a group exhibition curated by Murtaza Vali. Featuring works by Saira Ansari, Abdul Halik Azeez, Nihaal Faizal, Rajyashri Goody, Ranjit Kandalgaonkar, Huma Mulji, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Fazal Rizvi, Suneil Sanzgiri, Amba Sayal Bennett, Prarthna Singh, Jaret Vadera and Munem Wasif, the exhibition opens on Friday, August 4th, 2023.
Opening Reception: August 4th, 2023, 5-8pm
Philadelphia, PA, August 4, 2023 – In the aftermath of British colonial rule, a few crucial weeks in 1947 initiated complex and still-unresolved processes of nation-building across the South Asian subcontinent. The violence of the resulting displacement, fragmentation, and geopolitical conflict endures today, shaping the societies and peoples there and in the diaspora. Proposals for a Memorial to Partition is a peripatetic curatorial platform that solicits, collects, and presents proposals by artists, writers, and other cultural producers for an imagined memorial to the partitions that produced the region’s modern nation-states. The definition of “proposal” is intentionally expansive and flexible, modest in scale and tenor by design, and includes both existing and new work, ranging from sketches and maquettes to texts, publications, and art objects. This fluid framework allows contributors to both address past traumas accompanying the establishment of nations and borders and to take stock of its ongoing effects in the present: never-ending cycles of communal violence, growing authoritarianism, and religious fundamentalism.
This edition of the project takes many of its cues from its current context, the city of Philadelphia, and its integral role in the institution of American nationhood: it was home to Betsy Ross, who stitched the country’s first flag, and was where foundational documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were adopted. Other works foreground the importance and necessity of dissent and peaceful protest within a functioning democracy, emphasizing the role that voice, song, and poetry can play in that process. This iteration also adopts a global and diasporic lens, moving beyond the specific locus of 1947, to explore instances of more recent ethno-religious division and conflict in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Rejecting any singular, unifying narrative, the project instead offers a collective approach to remembrance, presenting a polyphony of poetic responses to such a profound foundational trauma as Partition.
Exhibition Information: Proposals for a Memorial to Partition features works by Saira Ansari, Abdul Halik Azeez, Nihaal Faizal, Rajyashri Goody, Ranjit Kandalgaonkar, Huma Mulji, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Fazal Rizvi, Suneil Sanzgiri, Amba Sayal-Bennett, Prarthna Singh, Jaret Vadera and Munem Wasif. It is on view from August 4, 2023 to October 28, 2023 at Twelve Gates Arts, 106 North 2nd St. Philadelphia, PA 19106.
There will be two artist panels accompanying the exhibition, on September 8, 2023 and September 22, 2023.
Gallery Hours: Thursday-Saturday 11 AM - 6 PM or by appointment.
About Murtaza Vali
Murtaza Vali is a critic, curator, and art historian based in Brooklyn and Sharjah. His ongoing research interests include materialist art histories; ex-centric minimalisms; ghosts and other figures of liminal subjectivities and repressed histories; the weight of color; and contemporary art around the Indian Ocean littoral. A recipient of a 2011 Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for Short-Form Writing, he publishes regularly in art periodicals and exhibition catalogues for non-profit institutions and commercial galleries, including essays in recent monographs on Fahd Burki (Jameel Arts Centre/Mousse Publishing, 2023), Seher Shah (Rizzoli, 2023) and Farah Al Qasimi (Art Gallery of Western Australia/Mousse Publishing, 2023). Vali was Curator-at-large of Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows, FRONT International 2022: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art (2022) and is Adjunct Curator at the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai, where he curated the widely acclaimed inaugural group exhibition Crude (2018), which explored the relationship between oil and modernity across South West Asia, and where the last iteration of Proposals for a Memorial to Partition was presented (2022-23). Other current or forthcoming projects include: Memory is the Seamstress, the first of two exhibitions about textile arts at Green Art Gallery, Dubai (2023); and Guest Relations, a sequel exhibition to Crude, examining hotels and the hospitality industry across the Global South at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2023-24).