Projections from Partition
The new space of Chatterjee and Lal Gallery in Mumbai was inaugurated with a solo show of Sophie Ernst. Born in Holland, Sophie Ernst has lived between several countries and found her aesthetic interest in India and Pakistan. Kanchi Mehta visits the video installations of Ernst and ruminates on the works.
Memories are phenomena that can never be erased. They are buried, forgotten or revived depending on the impact that they had. Sixty years ago, the Partition of our Nation had displaced thousands of people overnight, separating hundreds not only from their homes, but also from their loved ones. These memories remain somewhere deep inside, and with the passage of time, they become a myth for the generations to come.
Sophie Ernst lived in Israel before attending art school. During this period, she had the experience of interacting with people from Eastern Europe, and soon found herself drawn to stories and anecdotes that were recited about their lives, their struggle and their past. Through these stories, Ernst traveled back in time vicariously through the storyteller, and enjoyed creating her own visuals. “I am an image-maker,” she says, loving the very concept, “the process of how we form an image and how we change it has a lot to do with our memory.”
Since then, Ernst passionately documented several individuals whose lives were molded as a result of the Partition. She encouraged them to relive the fragmented memories as narratives, whilst an artist is simultaneously converting this story into an illustration through his understanding. This process was filmed. A voice in the background of the person reminiscing his past and a hand on the screen dancing to that voice, and reconstructing what the speaker has been through. Neither the speaker, nor the artist’s faces are shown. The viewer is thus encouraged to create a vision of his own (through the layers of images and dialogues proposed) of what a nation is, and where it has been. “All the images evoked are the truth. They all speak for themselves and they all have their relevance…”
Chatri Ka Bangla was emotional. Installed on a small screen on the wall, the video proposed Nazish Ataullah’s mother speaking of a distant memory of her home before the Partition, in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. A Gazebo in their garden that was roofed by an enormous umbrella fringed with lights and flowers was one of her vivid memories. The diameter of the pillar supporting the umbrella was vast, and on special occasions, there were beautiful seating arrangements and plenty of fruits, flowers, and decorations. It was her Neverland. She was sixteen when her family was declared evacuees. Several decades after the Partition, when her mother returned to Banjara Hills, a gigantic statue of Hanuman had replaced the umbrella. This is when the past becomes an illusion. All this while, as her mother is describing this vision, her daughter, an artist, is drawing what she imagines the umbrella looked like. It is delightful to see this generation gap interact. More importantly, as an observer, I found myself imagining that time in history, of how Nazish’s mother must have looked and what she must look like now. I created my own story. Like Ernst aptly said, “…all my work is about shifting images…I require you to fill in the gaps. I propose the image, and you make your own images of them…”
This was fascinating. As I sat in Chatterjee and Lal Gallery, I watched people respond to Ernst’s show, Paradise Now. The work engaged the viewers immediately. I witnessed little giggles, or disbelief, or sadness and also indifference as their reactions. The set of video projections from the series, “Dying Gauls” was an intense experience. A Hellenistic work of the late third century BC, a Dying Gaul is represented as a Gallic warrior with a typically Gallic hairstyle and moustache. He is shown fighting against death, taking fate in his own hands. Ernst recreated busts of the Gauls in plaster, and super-imposed video interviews of a few men from Lahore, Pakistan, onto the sculptures in a way that the faces of the men met the faces of the Heads. These men spoke freely their views about paradise, god, heaven, rituals, death, mid-life, and after life based on Islam. Their faith was so solid that it was inevitable for viewers to react with the same impact. The icons of the Dying Gauls become more relevant to the issues brought up by the Pakistani men. For example, I imagined the face of a Roman Catholic or a Protestant Christian expressing his faith, superimposed on the bust of Chhatrapati Shivaji. After a point, the only idea that lingers is the impression of struggle and nostalgia.
I asked Sophie one evening over a cup of coffee if she believed in what these men spoke of, to which she replied, “I see a much larger picture of my work. My initial interest comes from my personal surroundings, but I have to move beyond that. My subject is so vast. It is about human interest, basically. Listening to stories. They need not be true. But it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I have to engage in it.”
This perception is uniformly reflected in all her installations. They are all stories, anecdotes and narratives describing the notion of an ideal place, Jannat, which was the centerpiece of the show. COME, an expression used to lure / attract someone, the word was spelt out in large-scale wood cut letters spanning nineteen feet in length and three feet in depth. Projected onto this humungous word was an image of stylized trees, mountains, a glistening lake, birds flying, and a blue sky. There was a boat that sailed on this lake at regular intervals represented by the word Jannat, in Urdu.
As a commercially recognized image of paradise, it reminded me of the gaudy stickers that decorate taxis and rickshaws. It is an image seen so often by us in our waking life, that we have accepted it as a cultural icon. “These visuals give us an immediate response with all the layers of thought…” It only becomes conspicuous to us when Ernst observes this complacency and brings it to light through her visuals and understanding. Sophie Ernst has lived in Pakistan and India long enough to comprehend the roots of our culture, and brings up relevant issues to satiate her curiosity. Coincidentally, her installation at Chatterjee and Lal was on view through 14th, and 15th August, both important dates for every Pakistani and Indian. We completed sixty years of Independence. The younger generation will read it as a chapter in their History text, but for Nazish Ataullah, her mother and thousands of others, it was a chapter of their lives. However, it would be incorrect to narrow it down only to these two countries. With cultural boundaries becoming wider, this subject can be related to every political periphery across the globe. Ernst’s personal memory tends to diffuse into a more collective memory of the various places she has lived, and the people who have inspired her.
Sophie Ernst grew up in Holland. She initially trained as an industrial mechanic at BMW. After graduating from the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam she received a grant from the Prins Bernhard Fonds to travel to Pakistan. Since she has lived and exhibited across Europe and Asia. 2006 she was awarded the UNESCO Aschberg bursary. Ernst currently lives and teaches in Lahore, Pakistan and Berlin, Germany. |
