Exhibitions | Nation-building by Hamja Ahsan
Showing: Thu 29th Jul - Mon 23rd Aug
29 July - 23 August
The video installation Victory Day (2010) was originally conceived as a backdrop for a concert for Bangladesh Independence Day, featuring the reformed Asian Dub Foundation and State of Bengal. Composed from entirely original footage, the video was shot in Dhaka during the Victory month where the war of independence and final surrender from Pakistani army on 16th December is celebrated over an entire month. The work is a poetic mediation on how the spirit and aspirations of nation-building and resistance is embodied in rituals, monuments, folk songs, gatherings and national holidays. The work features footage from the South Asian football cup hosted in Bangladesh that year and Lalon Fakir Baul festival at Shiplakala National Arts academy. The composition ends with footage from the Bishwa ljtema - the world's largest Islamic gathering after Hajj that takes place in Dhaka by the river Tongi each year.
An additional video piece features a conversation with Shahidul Alam - the legendary Bangladeshi activist, photographer and founder of Chobi Mela/DRIK Photography agency. This is a part of a series of critical conversations on the politics of representation, inclusion and exclusion produced by Other Asias www.otherasias.com - Hamja Ahsan and Fatima Hussain's tansnational artists and writers' organisation. Another work, 71 Signs for a Nation was shot in Chittagong (the port city where war of Independence was declared) and Dhaka, featuring journalists, security guards, rickshaw drivers, DRIK photography agency, artists including, Porapara artists collective, actors and actresses on their hopes for the nation. The work ends with a demonstration from the Chittagong Hill Tracts tribal people locked in an insurgency for autonomy with the Bangladeshi government.
Additional editing and composition on Victory Day by Riffat Ahmed, a previous ENTER artist at Watermans Art Centre and part of Other Asias video production collective.
Hamja Ahsan (b.1981) is an artist and independent curator of the Bengali-Islamic diaspora, based in London.
Ahsan's practice ecncompasses the entire span of media: drawing, sound, painting, appropriated text work, sculpture, photography, performance, video, directing exhibitions and critical writing. His thematic concerns as an artist revolves around post-colonial history, diaspora politics, indexing time, the prison system and new formations of Imperialism.
He has previously presented projects at Tate Britain, The Guild Gallery (New York), Deptford X, Shanaakht Festival (Pakistan), Shiplakala Academy (Bangladesh) and across artist-run spaces. He is the co-ordinator of Other Asias - an artists-run organisation of 10 interweaving curatorial currents, exploring national and regional representation. He is the co-curator with Fatima Hussain of the REDO Pakistan project - a nomadic art project that circulates through the UK, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
He is currently working on a collaborative archival project with the jazz musician Zoe Rahman, exploring Bangladeshi nationhood as performative identity. His recent work included producing video installation as commissioned media artist for Bangladesh Indepencence Day and performative art writing around Other Asias keywords lexicon for Resonance FM. Hamja is a Chelsea (MA Critical Writing & Curatorial Practice) and Central St Martins (BA Fine Art) alumnus.
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