Sunday 15 February 2015

Welcome to the Lightning Testimonies Blog - some background



8 Channel Video Installation
Synchronized, Colour and b/w, Sound,
32 minutes and 31 seconds, Loop




Amar Kanwar's THE LIGHTNING TESTIMONIES (2007) is a multi-channel video installation that reflects upon a history of conflict in the Indian subcontinent through experiences of sexual violence. In this exploration, multiple submerged narratives are revealed, sometimes in people, images and memories, and at other times in objects from nature and everyday life that stand as silent but surviving witnesses. In all the narratives, the body is central - as a site for honour, hatred and humiliation and also for dignity and protest.

The Lightning Testimonies creates an experience that emerges from a
constellation of eight synchronized choreographed projections with sound tracks that lead to disparate narratives that then converge into a single projection. As the stories unfold, women from different times and regions come forward. The multiple projections speak to them directly, in an effort to understand how such violence is resisted, remembered and recorded by individuals and communities. Submerged narratives appear, disappear and are then reborn in another vocabulary at another time. Using a range of visual vocabularies, The Lightning Testimonies transports us beyond the realm of suffering into a space of quiet contemplation, where resilience creates the potential for transformation.

The research, recording, and reflection that went into this work will serve as the starting point for this blog.  However, its aim is to more broadly serve as an online resource on the question of sexual violence in the public sphere.  It will function as a platform for collecting media reports, studies, legal opinions, and academic writing on sexual violence in the public sphere.  This is an evolving project, and envisioned as a participatory space to share resources between an engaged and politicized public.

We invite you to visit the installation, read more about the issues it addresses, and engage with us on this blog as well as on our Facebook page to spread the word.




No comments:

Post a Comment